Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 26, 2026

Firetips

Firetips or firetail skippers are skipper butterflies in the subfamily Pyrrhopyginae. The roughly 150 species are found only in the Neotropics, 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 of many Pyrrhopyginae.

Last revised
May 26, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
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Citations
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Source
Firetips, firetail skippers
Male Pyrrhopyge sergius specimen
(left antenna missing)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Hesperiidae
Subfamily: Pyrrhopyginae
Mabille, 1877

Firetips or firetail skippers are skipper butterflies in the subfamily Pyrrhopyginae (family Hesperiidae). The roughly 150 species are found only in the Neotropics, 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 of many Pyrrhopyginae.1

Tribes

Pyrrhopyginae contains the following tribes:23

Footnotes

Footnotes

References

References

Media related to Pyrrhopygini at Wikimedia Commons