TY  - JOUR
A1  - Probst, Carolina
A1  - Gethmann, Jörn
A1  - Amendt, Jens
A1  - Lutz, Lena
A1  - Teifke, Jens Peter
A1  - Conraths, Franz Josef
T1  - Estimating the postmortem interval of wild boar carcasses
T2  - Veterinary Sciences
N2  - Knowledge on the postmortem interval (PMI) of wild boar (Sus scrofa) carcasses is crucial in the event of an outbreak of African swine fever in a wild boar population. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the decomposition process of this species in different microhabitats is necessary. We describe the decomposition process of carcasses exposed in cages. Trial 1 compared a wild boar and a domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) under similar conditions; Trial 2 was performed with three wild boar piglets in the sunlight, shade, or in a wallow, and Trial 3 with two adult wild boar in the sun or shade. The wild boar decomposed more slowly than the domestic pig, which shows that standards derived from forensic studies on domestic pigs are not directly applicable to wild boar. The carcasses exposed to the sun decomposed faster than those in the shade did, and the decomposition of the carcass in the wallow took longest. To assess the state of decomposition, we adapted an existing total body scoring system originally developed for humans. Based on our studies, we propose a checklist tailored to wild boar carcasses found in the field that includes the most important information for a reliable PMI estimation.
KW  - wild boar carcass
KW  - decomposition
KW  - total body score
KW  - forensic entomology
KW  - postmortem interval
KW  - checklist
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/54430
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-544302
SN  - 2306-7381
N1  - © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
VL  - 7
IS  - 6
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -