The Piophilidae are a family of "true flies", in the order Diptera. The so-called cheese flies are the best-known members, but most species of the Piophilidae are scavengers in animal products, carrion, and fungi. They may accordingly be important in forensic entomology and medical entomology. For a fly maggot, the larvae of many species have an unusually well-developed ability to leap when alarmed or when abandoning their larval food to pupate; they accordingly may be known as cheese skippers or other kinds of skippers according to their food source.

Forensic entomology is a field of forensic science that uses insects found on corpses to help solve criminal cases. This includes the study of insect types commonly associated with cadavers, their respective life cycles, their ecological presences in a given environment, as well as the changes in insect assemblage with the progression of decomposition. Insect succession patterns are identified based on the time a given species of insect spends in a given developmental stage, and how many generations have been produced since the insects introduction to a given food source. Insect development alongside environmental data such as temperature and vapor density, can be used to estimate the time since death, due to the fact that flying insects are attracted to a body immediately after death, determine any possible movement of the body after death, and the determination of antemortem trauma. The identification of postmortem interval to aid in death investigations is the primary scope of this scientific field. However, forensic entomology is not limited to homicides, it has also been used in cases of neglect and abuse, in toxicology contexts to detect the presence of drugs, and in dry shelf food contamination incidents. Equally, insect assemblages present on a body, can be used to approximate a given location, as certain insects may be unique to certain areas. Therefore, forensic entomology can be divided into three subfields: urban, stored-product and medico-legal/medico-criminal entomology.