Development Table
Definition
A species-specific reference dataset giving the accumulated temperature (degree hours or degree days above a threshold) required to complete each life-stage transition. Applied to scene temperature data to estimate how long larvae were developing before collection.
- Field
- Forensic entomology, rearing and PMI estimation
- Content
- Accumulated temperature (degree hours or degree days) per life-stage transition
- Specificity
- Species-specific
- Applied to
- Scene temperature data, to estimate larval development time
Common questions
Why does the table use accumulated temperature rather than elapsed clock time?+
Insect development is driven by temperature, not the calendar, so a larva at a warm scene reaches the same growth stage faster than one at a cool scene, and expressing the requirement in degree hours above a species-specific threshold lets the same table be applied correctly across different climates and seasons.
What happens if the wrong species' development table is used?+
Different blowfly and other necrophagous species have distinct threshold temperatures and stage durations, so applying one species' table to larvae collected from a different species produces a postmortem interval estimate that can be substantially off, which is why accurate species identification precedes any development-table calculation.
Related terms
- Eclosion
- The emergence of the adult fly from the puparium. In rearing, the date of eclosion is recorded as the end point of...
- Isomorphen Diagram
- A contour plot of the same axes where each contour connects all (temperature, age) combinations that produce the same morphological developmental stage...
- Minimum Base Temperature
- The temperature below which blow fly larval development effectively stops. This threshold varies by species: Lucilia sericata is typically around 9 degrees...
- Pupariation
- The process by which the third-instar larva contracts and hardens its own cuticle to form the puparial case (puparium) that encloses the...
- Rearing Medium
- The food source placed in the rearing container to support larval development. Raw beef liver is the standard; it provides protein, moisture,...