Firetips or firetail skippers are

skipper butterflies Skippers are a group of butterflies placed in the family Hesperiidae within the order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). They were previously placed in a separate superfamily, Hesperioidea, but have since been placed in the superfamily Papilion ...

in the subfamily Pyrrhopyginae (

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Hesperiidae). The roughly 150

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

are found only in the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeog ...

, with the exception of one species which just reaches into the United States. Their common names refer to the red tuft at the end of the

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...

of many Pyrrhopyginae.Brower (2007)

Tribes

Pyrrhopyginae contains the following tribes: * Azonaxini * Oxynetrini * Passovini * Pyrrhopygini * Zoniini

Footnotes

References

Butterfly subfamilies Taxa named by Paul Mabille {{Hesperiidae-stub