Diet

• Adults and nymphs: Predatory, feeding on small insects and other soft-bodied arthropods.

• They use their slender, piercing-sucking beak to capture prey and extract its internal fluids.

• Like other thread-legged assassin bugs, they are particularly suited to hunting tiny insects living on foliage, bark and other vegetation.

• Documented host-plant associations include pine, juniper, apple, walnut, holly and plane trees, although these plants serve primarily as habitat rather than food.

Range

• Empicoris rubromaculatus is a thread-legged assassin bug (Reduviidae) in the subfamily Emesinae, tribe Ploiariolini.

• It has an unusually broad, essentially cosmopolitan distribution, with records from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

• It is occasionally sighted in Zihua, where warm conditions and abundant vegetation provide suitable habitat.

Habitat

• Found on trees, shrubs, foliage, forest edges, gardens and other vegetated habitats.

• It may also occur around buildings, particularly where small insects and spiders provide prey.

• Around Zihua, carefully inspect foliage, stems, bark and sheltered areas, especially where small flying insects are abundant.

• Its extremely slender body allows it to remain concealed among fine stems, grasses and plant hairs.

Size

• Adult length: approximately 5–5.5 mm.

• Body exceptionally slender and thread-like, with very long, delicate legs and antennae.

• Usually brownish or greyish, with a distinctive reddish or pinkish marking around the pterostigma of the forewing.

• The narrow body and long appendages give it a superficial resemblance to a tiny mosquito or other delicate flying insect.