A variety of dead animals, ranging in size from small rodents to dead arthropods, were exposed to colonization by carrion-breeding flies to determine how Diptera use alternative carcass types. There is a distinct difference between the dipteran communities reared from different kinds of carrion. Small mammal carrion is dominated by two species that breed in different seasons, while dead snails, arthropods, salamanders, frogs, toads and snakes are used by many species that show weaker seasonal preferences. The species do not breed in the different carcass types indiscriminately; some have distinct preferences for certain kinds of carrion. Others reared from nonmammal carrion are opportunistic users of a wide variety of organic substances. The unpredictability of small nonmammal carcasses may explain their use by generalist species.
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Kenneth A. Kneidel (1984) studied this question.