Sam W. Heads (born 22 April 1983 in Northumberland, England) is a British palaeontologist, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, as well as a former Officer and Editor-in-Chief at the Orthopterists' Society.
He received his training at the University of Portsmouth where he was awarded a B.Sc. (Hons) in Palaeobiology and Evolution in 2004 and a Ph.D. in Entomology in 2009. Heads is an authority on the taxonomy, systematics and palaeontology of Orthoptera. He is based at the Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Heads, S.W. & Wang, Y. 2013. First fossil record of Melanoplus differentialis (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Melanoplinae). Entomological News 123: 33–37.
Heads, S.W., Taylor, S.J. & Krejca, J.K. 2013. First record of Scapteriscus abbreviatus from Belize (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae). Entomological News 123: 241–244.
Hollier, J. & Heads, S.W. 2014. The type specimens of Orthoptera described by American entomologists in the Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève. Revue suisse de Zoology 121: 63–76.
Barling, N., Heads, S.W. & Martill, D.M. 2013. A new parasitoid wasp (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil: the first Mesozoic Pteromalidae. Cretaceous Research 45: 258–264,
Hollier, J., Bruckner, H. & Heads, S.W. 2013. An annotated list of the Orthoptera (Insecta) species described by Henri de Saussure, with an account of the primary type material housed in the Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève, Part 5: Grylloidea. Revue suisse de Zoology 120: 445–535.
Jepson, J.E., Heads, S.W., Makarkin, V.N. & Ren, D. 2013. New fossil mantidflies (Insecta, Neuroptera, Mantispidae) from the Mesozoic of northeastern China. Palaeontology 56: 603–613.
Heads, S.W., Penney, D. & Green, D.I. 2012. A new species of the cricket genus Proanaxipha in Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic (Orthoptera, Gryllidae, Pentacentrinae). ZooKeys 229: 111–118.
Pérez-de la Fuente, R., Heads, S.W., Hinojosa-Díaz, I.A. & Engel, M.S. 2012. The first record of Protogryllinae from the Jurassic of India (Orthoptera: Grylloidea). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 85: 53–58.
Hollier, J. & Heads, S.W. 2012. An annotated list of the Orthoptera (Insecta) species described by Henri de Saussure, with an account of the primary type material housed in the Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève, Part 1: Tridactyloidea. Revue suisse de Zoology 119: 149–160.
Rodríguez, F. & Heads, S.W. 2012. New mole crickets of the genus Scapteriscus Scudder (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae: Scapteriscinae) from Colombia. Zootaxa 3282: 61–68.
Heads, S.W. & Taylor, S.J. 2012. A new species of Ripipteryx from Belize with a key to the species of the Scrofulosa Group (Orthoptera, Ripipterygidae). ZooKeys 169: 1–8.
Heads, S.W. & Leuzinger, L. 2011. On the placement of the Cretaceous orthopteran Brauckmannia groeningae from Brazil, with notes on the relationships of Schizodactylidae (Orthoptera: Ensifera). ZooKeys 77: 17–30.
Heads, S.W. 2010. New Tridactyloidea in Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic (Orthoptera: Caelifera). Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 46: 204–210.
Heads, S.W. 2010. A new species of Ripipteryx from the Ecuadorian Andes (Orthoptera: Tridactyloidea: Ripipterygidae). Zootaxa 2476: 23–29.
Heads, S.W. 2010. The first fossil spider cricket (Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Phalangopsinae): 20 million years of troglobiomorphosis or exaptation in the dark? Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 158: 56–65.
Heads, S.W. & Maehr, M.D. 2009. Proposed conservation of the name Gastrimargus Saussure, 1884 (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Oedipodinae) threatened by an unused senior homonym. Zootaxa 2268: 65–68.