maggots develop at a rate that is depended entirely upon environmental factors, which makes temperature one of the most important things throughout the morgue evaluation process. insects that are cold tolerant or warm tolerant, will have different temperatures in the body bag. both cold and warm tolerant maggots survive by maggot mass feeding. however, cold tolerant maggots can develop in smaller masses while warm tolerant maggots require larger masses. the maggots produce metabolic heat from bacterial digestion of the flesh, which enables them to develop while stored in a cold location. maggot masses tend to move to thicker parts of the body that decrease in temperature more slowly. this is sufficient to continue maggot development.