Diapause among the flesh flies (Diptera: Sarcophagidae)

I was hooked.Those initial experiments fostered my lifelong interest in diapause, especially pupal diapause in fl esh fl ies.Since that time, fl esh fl ies have garnered considerable attention as a diapause model, and my goal here is to briefl y summarize the current scope of our knowledge, with the hope of providing a springboard for new investigators interested in exploring the many remaining questions related to diapause in this interesting family.Consistently, at temperate latitudes, third instar larvae complete feeding, leave the food source, burrow into the substrate and pupariate.In response to appropriate environmental cues received early in larval life, the pupa inside the puparium enters a facultative diapause.Though some insect species enter summer diapause, and some enter diapause repeatedly or may enter a prolonged diapause lasting more than a year (Denlinger, 2022), no such features have been noted in the sarcophagids.Diapause is exclusively entered in the pupal stage and serves to bridge the winter season or tropical cool seasons, as discussed below.With over 3000 described species in the family Sarcophagidae worldwide (Pape, 1996), there will likely be some species that do not conform to the diapause observations documented here, but the striking observation thus far is how uniform the pupal diapause response appears to be.