The Eumaeini are a tribe

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...

 of gossamer-winged butterflies (family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Lycaenidae). They are typically placed in the subfamily Theclinae

Theclinae

Subfamily Theclinae is a group of butterflies, including the hairstreaks, elfins and allies, in the family Lycaenidae. There are many tropical species as well as a number found in the Americas. Tropical hairstreaks often have iridescent blue coloration above, caused by reflected light from the...

, but sometimes considered a separate subfamily Eumaeinae.

Systematics

As not all Theclinae

Theclinae

Subfamily Theclinae is a group of butterflies, including the hairstreaks, elfins and allies, in the family Lycaenidae. There are many tropical species as well as a number found in the Americas. Tropical hairstreaks often have iridescent blue coloration above, caused by reflected light from the...

 have been assigned to tribes, the genus list is preliminary. However, much progress has been made in sorting out the profusion of synonymous taxa, and at least some degree of stability has been achieved in the early years of the 21st century. While there is no good phylogenetic hypothesis yet for the subfamily, groups of at least apparently related 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...

 have been delimited. They are sometimes called "sections", but do not correspond to the taxonomic rank of section (the section in which the gossamer-winged butterflies are placed is the Cossina

Cossina

Cossina is the name for both a section and subsection of Ditrysian insects in order containing both butterflies and moths having a dorsal heart vessel...

); if validated as clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

s and assigned taxonomic rank, they would qualify as subtribes.

There is still much work to be done, including the splitting of such notorious "wastebin taxa

Wastebin taxon

Wastebasket taxon is a term used in some taxonomic circles to refer to a taxon that has the sole purpose of classifying organisms that do not fit anywhere else. They are typically defined by their lack of one or more distinct character states or by their not belonging to one or more other taxa...

" as Callophrys

Callophrys

The genus Callophrys consists of butterflies in the family Lycaenidae. It is apparently not monophyletic, but which ones of the taxa currently considered junior synonyms of Callophrys are actually valid genera remains to be determined....

, and the establishment of a robust phylogenetic and evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

ary scenario. Pending this, the groups are listed here in the presumed phylogenetic sequence, while genera are simply sorted alphabetically.