General Awareness: Forensic Entymology Quiz

1. Entomology as a tool to solving criminal cases was first used by this man.

a) Paolo Zacchia
b) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
c) Song Ci
d) Ambroise Pare

The correct answer is c) Song Ci

2. What can forensic entomology be used to determine?

a) Time of death
b) Neglect of the elderly
c) Location of death
d) All of these

The correct answer is d) All of these

3. What are the three subdivisions of forensic entomology?

a) Blood spatter, trace evidence, toxicology
b) Medicolegal, urban, and stored product pests
c) Epistemology, osteology, insect proliferation
d) Human adaptation, necrophagia, serological impact

The correct answer is b) Medicolegal, urban, and stored product pests

4. What insects are the first to appear on the dead?

a) Beetles
b) Ants
c) Mites
d) Flies

The correct answer is d) Flies

5. How would a forensic entomologist define a "flyspeck"?

a) Minute larvae from fly infestation
b) Tracking of pooled blood by flies
c) The feces from a fly that has fed on blood
d) Any kind of a small discoloration found at the crime scene

The correct answer is c) The feces from a fly that has fed on blood

6. Can DNA technology be utilized in forensic entomology?

a) Yes - but only to determine species of insect
b) No - the DNA absorbed by an insect is too minute for analysis
c) No - the DNA is destroyed by the insect's digestive tract
d) Yes - to determine insect species and/or human DNA from victim or suspect if the insect fed on the individual

The correct answer is d) Yes - to determine insect species and/or human DNA from victim or suspect if the insect fed on the individual

7. Weather is a factor in the forensic entomologist's determination of time of death.

a) True
b) False

The correct answer is a) True

8. What method of forensic entomology is used to determine time since death when the corpse has been dead from one month to a year or more?

a) Accumulated degree hour technique
b) Maggot age and development
c) Successional waves of insects
d) Questioned epistemological examination

The correct answer is c) Successional waves of insects

9. Entomological evidence cannot determine the presence and position of wounds.

a) True
b) False

The correct answer is b) False

10. Which of these insects are considered to be late stage scavengers?

a) Macrocheles mites
b) Hide beetles
c) Hister beetles
d) Devil's coach-horse beetles

The correct answer is b) Hide beetles