Insects colonize remains in a predictable succession because different species are drawn to different stages of decomposition, and each species' own life cycle only advances when the local temperature is warm enough. This simulator drives that succession with a simplified accumulated-degree-hour (ADH) model: development only proceeds above a base threshold, so a cold night effectively pauses every insect's biological clock while a hot day accelerates it.
rate(T) = clamp((T − 10) / 10, 0.05, 3) // 1.0 at 20°C
bioHours = elapsedHours × rate(T)
speciesPresent = appearBio ≤ bioHours ≤ fadeBio
- Time since death — real hours elapsed; drives the Forward mode clock directly.
- Ambient temperature — colder scenes slow larval and beetle development, warmer scenes speed it up, exactly as accumulated degree-day methods used in real casework do.
- Estimate PMI — the reverse problem real entomologists solve: given only which species are present or absent at a known temperature, bracket how long ago death occurred. Early flies but no larvae means only hours have passed; beetles but no flies means the flies' window has already closed.
- This is an educational abstraction of forensic entomology, not a diagnostic tool — real casework uses species-specific growth curves, weather station records and lab-reared reference colonies.