How insects can help catch rhino poachers

Flies and beetles provide clues to when an animal was killed

A group of three wildlife specialists hold on to the end of a rope lassoed around a rhinos horn on a sunny grassland

Insects that colonize a rhino’s body can help investigators determine when the animal was killed. Such evidence has been used to help wildlife specialists (like those pictured here) catch and convict poachers in South Africa.

STEFAN HEUNIS / AFP / Getty Images

In 1988, police officers in Australia came for Ian Dadour.