Enicocephalidae

Enicocephalidae, also called unique-headed bugs and gnat bugs, are a family of around 300 species of the suborder Heteroptera. They are typically 4 mm (0.16 in) long, and found throughout the world. They have an elongated head, constricted in places, hence their head is 'unique'.

Enicocephalidae

Uncredited · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
unique-headed bugPBDB
Sits inside
EnicocephalomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 15 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 15 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 15 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 15 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 15 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 1 occurrence58–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 4 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence93.9 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

15 occurrences of Enicocephalidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

15 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

La Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WLondon Clay — 51.43°N, 0.83°E

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The named rock units Enicocephalidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Enicocephalidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Enicocephalidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

819 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Enicocephalidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

6 references

Each of the 15 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Enicocephalidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Enicocephalidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itEnicocephalomorpha through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stal 1860