Kingdom Animalia Order Lepidoptera Family Hesperiidae Scientific name Carcharodini Rank Tribe | Phylum Arthropoda Superfamily Hesperioidea Subfamily Pyrginae Higher classification Spread-winged skipper Lower classifications Ocella, Burca | |
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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 four 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.
Genera
The genera are listed here in the presumed phylogenetic sequence: