Enicocephalidae

It is not so often that people kindly identify the bugs I see but when it happens, it is absolutely delightful.


This insect seen at Venus Drive on 101231 is a gnat bug (Enicocephalidae), ID by Daniel Bauer, thank you Daniel!

It's a unique-headed bug in the enigmatic family Enicocephalidae. These soil-dwelling insects are predators of other arthropods. They are of phylogenetic interest as a potential sister lineage to the remaining Heteroptera, the true bugs. - myrmecos

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Enicocephalomorpha
Features of this seldom seen group of true bugs have not figured prominently–if at all–in many classificatory schemes of the Heteroptera, or their morphology was incompletely appreciated, leading to their placement with the Reduviidae, the latter being members of the infraorder Cimicomorpha. Nonetheless, the Enicocephalomorpha have come to occupy the pivotal basal position in current hypotheses of heteropteran phylogenetic relationships. The group is biologically interesting for its habit of forming single-sex mating swarms. It is through the observation of these swarms, or the attraction of individuals to lights, that the majority of known specimens have been collected. Most of the modern work on morphology and higher classification of the unique-headed bugs has been done by Pavel Stys.

Enicocephalomorpha are diagnosed by the division of the head into anterior and posterior lobes by way of a postocular constriction. The foretibia is dilated, armed with 1 or 2 clusters of spiniform setae, and can be opposed with 1 or 2-segmented tarsus. The male genitalia are always symmetrical and possess paired genital plates similar to the condition seen in the Auchenorrhyncha. The female subgenital plate is formed of abdominal sternum 8 rather than 7, as is the case in all other Heteroptera. - research.amnh.org/pbi/bugs/true_bugs.html

Sadly NTU does not have access to these papers on Enicocephalidae:
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ENICOCEPHALIDAE (Hemiptera, Reduvioidea)
Author: USINGER, ROBERT L.
Source: Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Volume 38, Number 3, September 1945 , pp. 321-342(22)
Publisher: Entomological Society of America

ŠTYS P. 2002: Key to genus-group taxa of the extant Enicocephalomorpha of the World, their list and taxonomic changes (Heteroptera). Acta Univ. Carol. - Biol. 44: 341-370.


Daniel Bauer has been very kind in IDing the Reduviidae we have seen in our nature reserves. He has a Reduviidae website and also a blog.