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The Neotropical trapdoor spider genus Neocteniza Pocock, 1895 is distributed throughout Central and South America. The genus currently comprises 18 species and little is known about the biology of these spiders. We provide an amended diagnosis for the genus Neocteniza and the species: N. minima Goloboff, 1987, N. australis Goloboff, 1987 and N. toba Goloboff, 1987, and also redescribe them. We include new records of these species from Brazil and notes on natural history of N. toba, providing data on burrow structure, diet, development and the first record of ballooning behavior for Idiopidae. We propose a terminology for the genitalia and consider homology among genital structures and among possibly stridulatory structures. We also discuss relationships of Neocteniza with other Idiopidae, stressing the uniqueness of the genus and its differences from all other Idiopidae including other Genysinae.

Several lineages of stick insects (Phasmatodea) are poorly studied, especially in the Neotropics. Recently, Brazilian stick insects have been subject of significant research and, among them, the Heteronemiidae, although several genera remain to be explored. Pygirhynchini is an Heteronemiidae lineage currently containing four genera, of which three occur in Brazil: Ceroys, Canuleius and Pygirhynchus. The former is subdivided in Ceroys (Ceroys) and Ceroys (Miroceroys) based on ornamentation variations absence or presence of a spine on the scapus. We describe two new species, Ceroys (Miroceroys) cancelloae sp. nov. and Ceroys (Miroceroys) indicattii sp. nov. based on both sexes and eggs. The new species inhabit submontane, ombrophilous Atlantic Forest in Southeast Brazil and can be differentiated from other Ceroys (Miroceroys) by conspicuous features of external morphology of adults and eggs. We also briefly describe and illustrate nymphal stages of C. cancelloae sp. nov. and present notes on the biology of both species, and a distribution map for the genus, increasing the scarce knowledge of the natural history of phasmids in Brazil.