Bug FAQDull Firetip
Pyrrhopyge araxes · Order: Lepidoptera · Family: Hesperiidae
The dull firetip butterfly has a wingspan of about 4.5 to 5.7 cm and brown wings with white glassy spots on top and bright yellow-orange on the underside. It lives in southwestern oak woodlands, along roadsides, streamsides and forest trails, and adults are attracted to flowers from August through November.
Source: Wikipedia
How to recognize it
The underside is brown with the body and the base of the wings bright yellow-orange.
Source: Wikipedia
Size
Wingspan ranges from 1 ¾ to 2 ¼ inches (4.5 to 5.7 cm).
Source: Wikipedia
What it eats
Adults feed on flower nectar.
Source: Wikipedia
Life cycle
The caterpillars build a folded-over leaf nest to live in. There is one brood per year.
Source: Wikipedia
When you see it
Adults are most common in September and can be seen from August to November.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it comes from
It is the only member of its subfamily that occurs in the United States. It is also sometimes found in Mexico.
Source: Wikipedia
Lookalikes
It is the only Pyrrhopyginae butterfly in the United States, so there are no similar species locally.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it is found in the US
Recorded in 5 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Nevada, Utah.
Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.
Source: GBIF
Status: endemic in North America. Source: iNaturalist
Months it is reported in the US
Source: GBIF
More photos
Questions people ask
When can I see dull firetip butterflies?
Adults are most common in September and are on the wing from August through November.
Source: Wikipedia
Where does the dull firetip live?
It lives in southwestern oak woodlands, along roadsides, streamsides and forest trails in the United States, and sometimes in Mexico.
Source: Wikipedia
What do the caterpillars look like?
The larvae make a folded-over leaf nest where they live.
Source: Wikipedia
Same family (Hesperiidae)
Sources
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apyrrothrix_araxes
Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia
Text written 2026-10-24 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-24.