Enicocephalomorpha

Enicocephaloidea is a sole superfamily within the infraorder Enicocephalomorpha of the hemipteran suborder Heteroptera. The group was formerly thought to be related to the Reduviidae because of similarities in head structure but they are now considered different enough from other Heteroptera to constitute a separate infraorder and represents a sister group of the Leptopodomorpha. They are predaceous and some species are known to swarm but little is known of their life history. A few species of enicocephalids are known to shed their wings before entering the surface of subsoil.

Enicocephalomorpha

Desmond W. Helmore · CC BY 4.0 · 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
Sits inside
HeteropteraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 3 of 21 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 21 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 21 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 21 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 21 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 21 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 21 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 21 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence115–111 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 5 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences60–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 4 occurrences4.3–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence121.4 Mya11.7 ka128 Mya0 Mya

21 occurrences of Enicocephalomorpha 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

21 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

3 formations

La Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WLondon Clay — 51.43°N, 0.83°EEscucha — 41.03°N, 0.56°W

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The named rock units Enicocephalomorpha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Enicocephalomorpha and its relatives

Miocene

Where Enicocephalomorpha and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,031 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Enicocephalomorpha, 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

11 references

Each of the 21 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 Enicocephalomorpha

Credit
Desmond W. Helmore
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Enicocephalomorpha 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 itHeteroptera through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.