Cyrestinae
Subfamily of butterfly family Nymphalidae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cyrestinae is a small subfamily of nymphalid brush-footed butterflies. It is considered to include only three genera – Marpesia, Chersonesia, and Cyrestis – distributed in the tropics.[1]
| Cyrestinae | |
|---|---|
| |
| Cyrestis thyodamas | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Nymphalidae |
| Subfamily: | Cyrestinae Guenée, 1865 |
Systematics
The circumscription of the Cyrestinae has seen some changes in the recent years, when the former tribes Cyrestini and Pseudergolini were suggested to form a monophyletic clade, and the name was given to the proposed new subfamily,[2] but the tribes were split again later—as two independent subfamilies—as their positions within the Nymphalidae were defined more clearly.[1] It is now considered to be the sister group to the larger subfamily Nymphalinae, and only three genera are included:
Marpesia is Neotropical and Cyrestis and Chersonesia are mainly Oriental with a few species in the Afrotropics.[3]
