When perceiving tactile stimuli the tibiae are struck like a jackknife against the femura, which aims to pinch the opponent.

In adult females, the abdomen is widened towards the middle and significantly increased due to the large numbers of eggs produced.

Dorsal (anatomy)ly the ovipositor consists of the eleventh tergum called the supraanal plate or Epiproct.

[8] The smaller males have a central abdomen area that is round in cross-section, which is the thinnest here in contrast to the females.

The thickened end of the abdomen is formed ventrally by the subgenital plate and dorsally by the eighth, ninth and tenth tergum, latter known as anal segment.

[4] The distribution area of the Heteropteryginae extends from the south of Vietnam over the Thailand part of the Malay Peninsula and includes Borneo, Sumatra and Java the Greater Sunda Islands except Sulawesi.

The eastern limit of distribution thus corresponds to the southern course of the Huxley Line, without including Palawan in the north.

[3][4] The adult females usually lay their relatively large eggs individually, several centimeters deep in the ground using the ovipositor.

Of the four included tribes, three were placed in the rank of subfamilies of the Heteropterygidae, while the Malagasy species were transferred to the newly established family Anisacanthidae.

Since the study of this group by Hennemann et al. in 2016 it is only divided into two genera by the synonymization of the genus Miniopteryx discriebed by Zompro.

The result showed that the representatives of the Heteropterigini form a common clade, but the genus Heteropteryx is phylogenetically placed in the middle of several lines of species currently listed in Haaniella.