Carcharodini
Encyclopedia
The Carcharodini are a tribe
in the skipper butterfly subfamily Pyrginae. They are a very diverse but quite plesiomorphic and inconspicuous group distributed throughout the Tropics
.
Formerly, when only 4 tribes of Pyrginae were recognized, they were included in the Pyrgini
, which at that time contained a massive number of genera
. But the Pyrginae have since been reorganized to make them and their tribes monophyletic, leading most modern authors to treat the Carcharodini as distinct tribe. However, the old circumscription of the Pyrgini was by and large just as correct from a phylogenetic perspective.
The tribe of the Pyrgini sensu lato most closely related to the Pyrgini sensu stricto are the strikingly different Achlyodidini
. As many consider it desirable to treat this lineage as a distinct tribe, the Carcharodini naturally need to be considered distinct too.
Tribe (biology)
In biology, a tribe is a taxonomic rank between family and genus. It is sometimes subdivided into subtribes.Some examples include the tribes: Canini, Acalypheae, Hominini, Bombini, and Antidesmeae.-See also:* Biological classification* Rank...
in the skipper butterfly subfamily Pyrginae. They are a very diverse but quite plesiomorphic and inconspicuous group distributed throughout the Tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
.
Formerly, when only 4 tribes of Pyrginae were recognized, they were included in the Pyrgini
Pyrgini
The Pyrgini are a tribe in the skipper butterfly subfamily Pyrginae. Formerly, when only 4 tribes of Pyrginae were recognized, the Pyrgini contained the largest number of genera among these. But this overly wide delimitation has since turned out to be paraphyletic.One of the traditional Pyrginae...
, which at that time contained a massive number of genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
. But the Pyrginae have since been reorganized to make them and their tribes monophyletic, leading most modern authors to treat the Carcharodini as distinct tribe. However, the old circumscription of the Pyrgini was by and large just as correct from a phylogenetic perspective.
The tribe of the Pyrgini sensu lato most closely related to the Pyrgini sensu stricto are the strikingly different Achlyodidini
Achlyodidini
The Achlyodidini are a tribe in the skipper butterfly subfamily Pyrginae. Many species of them are notable for their gaudy colors and the unusually-shaped wings, which look as if the forewing tips have been squarely cut off...
. As many consider it desirable to treat this lineage as a distinct tribe, the Carcharodini naturally need to be considered distinct too.