Our annual bottom-10 list, in which we salute the men and women who do what no salary can adequately reward


Number 9: Forensic Entomologist

Solving murders by studying maggots

"One day a local detective called me who knew I´d majored in entomology in college and said, "Hey, Neal, we got a body at the morgue with insects on it. You wanna give it a shot?´ The corpse turned out to be a guy I used to have breakfast with, and there were maggots in his teeth. Then I found some in his eyes, and I thought, "This is what I want to do. This is just way too cool.´"

Neal Haskell´s eagerness could easily be interpreted as insensitivity. But it takes a unique sensibility to rise to the top of his particular field. Now, 700 maggot-infested corpses later, the former Indiana farmer is one of the nation´s leading forensic entomologists, teaching at St. Joseph´s College, testifying in roughly 100 cases, and co-authoring the first entomology book for law enforcement. His job, like that of the country´s 20 or so other insect investigators, is to estimate the "postmortem interval" (the time between death and the body´s discovery) by charting the life stages of the blowfly, the world´s predominant cadaver connoisseur.

Picking through rotting corpses for eggs, maggots, pupa and adult blowflies-as well as the larvae of odd species like cheese skippers, a type of fly fond of cheddar, ham and human fat-FEs can help estimate time of death (essential in a murder case) by determining when decomposed bodies first became critter food.

Occasionally forensic entomologists get a case that requires more participatory research. To help solve a crime in Cleveland, for example, Haskell mimicked the case details by wrapping 17 dead pigs ("they approximate human corpses surprisingly well") in plastic to determine the order in which flies are likely to colonize bagged corpses. "I´ve done an awful lot of neat things in my life," Haskell says. "But this maggot work and getting the bad guys off the street is the neatest."


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25 Comments

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"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?

Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.

"Go vegan", indeed.

"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?

Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.

"Go vegan", indeed.

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That's so disgusting. Go vegan!

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what does vegan-ism have anything to do with anything...are you talking about the whale vasectomy?

sorry, i meant elephant vasectomy.



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