The Ancistroidini are a
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
in the
Hesperiinae
Grass skippers or banded skippers are butterflies of the subfamily Hesperiinae, part of the skipper family, Hesperiidae. The subfamily was established by Pierre André Latreille in 1809.
Description and distribution
With over 2,000 described sp ...
subfamily of skipper
butterflies
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises t ...
. They are often blackish in base color; several of the
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...
contain the
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
commonly called "demon butterflies" or "demon skippers". As most Hesperiinae have not yet been assigned to tribes, more genera are likely to be placed into this presently rather small group eventually.
[Warren, Andrew D. ''The higher classification of the Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera: Hesperioidea)''. Oregon State University, 2006.]
References
Butterfly tribes
{{hesperiinae-stub