Unlike other small insects with feathery wings, such as parasitic wasps like fairyflies, ptillids do not fly using a clap and fling motion, but instead fly using a figure of eight pattern where the wings clap at the apex of the upward and downward strokes.

[5] The small size has forced many species to sacrifice some of their anatomy, like the heart, crop, and gizzard.

Ptiliidae have a short life cycle, with an egg-adult time of 32-45 days observed for three British species of Ptinella.

They can reproduce continuously under favourable conditions, with larvae often co-occurring with both teneral and fully hardened adults at different times of the year.

They are found in a wide variety of habitats, including rotting and fungus infested wood, tree holes, under kelp along shorelines and within or near ant and termite nests.