Exploitation of cracked chicken eggs by scuttle flies (Diptera: Phoridae): the first record from Malaysia

Abstract

Poultry farm eggs, mainly chicken eggs, are one of the most widely used livestock products in Malaysia. For the past four years, Malaysians consumed more than 10 billion eggs annually with yearly record of more than 300 eggs per individual consumption. The demand for ‘designer eggs’ that are low in cholesterol and high in omega-3 fatty acids from the consumers was also increasing at retail stores but the presence of pests in these products was rarely known. This article reports the contamination of marketed designer chicken eggs by Megaselia scalaris (Loew) (Diptera: Phoridae) and Megaselia spiracularis Schmitz, two scuttle fly species of medical and forensic importance. Data were obtained from four chicken eggs delivered by a consumer to Forensic Entomology Laboratory, Forensic Science Programme, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia (UKM). Upon inspection, only one of the eggs was found cracked, containing dipterous larvae. Larvae were reared on the cracked eggs in a sealed container in the laboratory (23.0–27.0℃, 69.0–70.0% RH) until adult stage to facilitate species identification of phorids. The discovery of larvae of both species feeding on cracked, commercialized chicken eggs highlighted the risk of contamination on poultry products by scuttle flies. For economic and medical reasons, these findings could be useful to properly assess quality management in the production of designer chicken eggs, as scuttle flies have been previously recorded as pests and agents of myiasis through contaminated food ingestion.