Abstract: Objective To detect 715 bp sequence of 28S rRNA in sarcosaphagous flies, and to identify their common species for solving the problem of morphological identification, as well as providing technical support for postmortem interval （PMI） estimation. Methods Twenty-nine common sarcosaphagous flies were collected in Luoyang and classified by morphological characteristics. The DNA was extracted from the fly’s legs by Chelex-100 method and then the fragments of 28S rRNA were amplified and sequenced. The results were compared with twenty-eight corresponding fly species of GenBank and EMBL databases. All the sequences were analyzed by MEGA7.0 software, and sequence alignment was performed by the searching in BLAST. The nucleotide composition was analysed, and the intraspecific and interspecific genetic distance and phylogenetic tree were established. Results Twenty-nine sarcosaphagous flies were classified into 6 species of 5 genera, 3 families by morphological characteristics. In the obtained 715 bp sequence of 28S rRNA, the comparison result of online BLAST showed that the similarity was 100%. Five species were well clustered by a phylogenetic tree. Between different groups, the interspecific and intraspecific differences ranged from 0.007 to 0.045 and 0 to 0.001, respectively. Conclusion The 28S rRNA target gene sequences shows a good identification capability, which can be a new genetic marker for the identification of sarcosaphagous flies.

Key words: forensic entomology, forensic genetics, sarcosaphagous flies, cluster analysis, 28S rRNA, postmortem interval, Luoyang