The Cratomorphini are a disputed tribe

Tribe (biology)

In biology, a tribe is a taxonomic rank between family and genus. It is sometimes subdivided into subtribes.Some examples include the tribes: Canini, Acalypheae, Hominini, Bombini, and Antidesmeae.-See also:* Biological classification* Rank...

 of fireflies

Fireflies

Fireflies is a novel by Shiva Naipaul originally published in 1970. It was his first book, a comic novel set in Trinidad. In an essay in An Unfinished Journey, Naipaul described how in 1968 as a final year student at Oxford University studying Chinese, he had been moved to write down a sentence,...

 of the large subfamily Lampyrinae

Lampyrinae

The Lampyrinae are a large subfamily of fireflies . The exact delimitation, and the internal systematics, are a matter of debate; for long this group was used as a "wastebin taxon" to hold any fireflies with insufficiently resolved relationships...

. The genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 placed here often contain well-sized members of their family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

. The larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

e of many species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 climb trees to feed on snails. This group contains a few "lightning bug

Lightning Bug

Lightning Bug can refer to:* A firefly, particularly North American Photinus, Photuris and Pyractomena* Lightning Bug , a 2004 horror film by writer/director Robert Hall* Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug, an unmanned aerial vehicle...

s" (flashing fireflies) from North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, e.g. the genus Pyractomena. Further south in the American tropics

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

, Aspisoma can be found, but this is very doubtfully placed here.

It appears that this is a paraphyletic group, assembling ancient lineages of Lampyrinae. The eventual fate of this group is not known; pending resolution of the affinities of the type genus

Type genus

In biological classification, a type genus is a representative genus, as with regard to a biological family. The term and concept is used much more often and much more formally in zoology than it is in botany, and the definition is dependent on the nomenclatural Code that applies:* In zoological...

 Cratomorphus, it might be disassembled or persist without some genera which are closer to other tribes.

Selected genera

• Aspisoma Laporte, 1833 (might belong in Lampyrini
  Lampyrini
  The Lampyrini are a tribe of fireflies in the large subfamily Lampyrinae. The lineage formerly separated as Pleotomini seems to be a specialized offshoot of the Lampyrini not too distant from the type genus Lampyris and is therefore included here. This tribe occurs throughout the Holarctic and...
  
  )
• Cratomorphus
• Micronaspis Green, 1948
• Pyractomena LeConte, 1845