Answer to the Monday Night Mystery

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What was the mystery?

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.

Enicocephalids aren't terribly common- I can count on one hand the times I've seen them in the field- and I was most surprised to find one scurrying about under a stone in my small urban front yard.

Five points to James Trager, who first picked the order. And five more to Kojun, who got the family.

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Ha! I run into these occasionally and always thought they were young of some sort of reduviid. Taxonomy fail on my part!

By James C. Trager (not verified) on 13 May 2010 #permalink