Silphidae are considered to be of importance to forensic entomologists because when they are found on a decaying body they are used to help estimate a post-mortem interval.

Members of the subfamily Silphinae show little to no care for their young and breed on large carrion.

Nicrophorinae breed on small animal carrion and will bury themselves and their food to rear their offspring in a bi-parental manner.

[3] The oldest fossils of silphids are known from the Middle Jurassic (~ 163 million years ago) Daohugou Bed in Northern China.

They also found that egg production increased with flight loss because of a more limited food supply.

[6] The word "silphid" or "sylph", first seen in the sixteenth century in Paracelsus' works, refers to any race of spirits inhabiting the air and is described as mortal, but lacking soul.

The Silphinae life cycle takes approximately twenty six to fifty eight days to go from an egg to adult.

Pupation takes fourteen to twenty one days and is the major part of metamorphosis where a grandiose change occurs.

The amount of food and parental care exhibited help determine the length of the larval stage.

The burying behavior has seemingly evolved to prevent competition from other insects such as fly maggots.

More likely than not a breeding pair will work together, but in cases where there is large carrion males try to boost their reproduction by emitting pheromones.

The losing pair will be ejected from the carrion and if any eggs have been laid they are killed so the new female can lay her own.

[12] Silphid adults feed in a saprophagous manner: they colonize the carrion during all four stages of decomposition, which are fresh, bloated, decay, and dry.

The parental care exhibited by this subfamily is that the adult beetles regurgitate food into the mouths of the young larvae until they are mature.

In some species, a slight depression is made on the detritus for maturing larvae that the adult beetles feed and protect.

In both subfamilies the larvae are observed to eat the decaying organic material while the adults mainly consume the maggots.

[13] Some species secrete a chemical from a rectal gland that consists of aliphatic acids and terpene alcohols.

Silphidae use their sense of smell to locate carcasses from a long distance by chemoreceptors on their antennae, which are adapted to detect these chemicals.

The advantage is that fly competitors lay eggs that result in maggots and supply food for silphids.

The disadvantage for the Nicrophorinae is that if the carcass is already “blown”, referring to Shakespearean time as being infected with fly maggots, they will not colonize.

They help the environment by laying their eggs on carcasses and the larvae break down the detritus, which prevents accumulation of deceased organisms.

Some Silphidae species inhabit human-occupied areas and become pests to farmers by using crops as an additional source of nutrients.

Mites from the genus Poecilochirus produce deutonymphs that crawl on Nicrophorinae and are transported to carrion.

Once they arrive at the carrion, deutonymphs leave the adult Nicrophorinae and proceed to feed on nearby fly eggs and immature larvae.

Unlike most of the insects used as forensic markers, it is possible to assess if Silphidae adults have colonized a corpse and left it later.