The body is usually slender, often densely and finely punctured; the head is more or less round and the color may be light or dark brown, reddish-brown, or black, sometimes with contrasting colors of red, yellow, and black.

Rove beetles belonging to this subfamily are distributed throughout the world in almost all terrestrial habitats.

They are commonly predators in soil communities and leaf litter, frequently inquilines in ant and termite nests or associated with mushrooms and fungi.

It is collected through several methods, including the use of UV light, emergence chambers, sifting, using Berlese organic material, and pitfall traps.

Free-living, parasitic, herbivorous, carnivorous, fungivorous, flying, walking, running, swimming, social, and solitary forms are known, but their life histories are almost unknown at the species level.