subtribe

plural subtribes

1. A tribe making up part of a larger tribe.

   This leaves for consideration of this group of small tribes, or subtribes, so far as mapped by the writer quoted, the Teule, Cazcan, and Tecuexe.

   1911, Cyrus Thomas, Indian Languages of Mexico and Central America

2. biologyA taxonomic category ranking below tribe.

   Brieger and his associates first divide the subtribe Epidendrinae […] into what could be called series, distinguishing four such series in the subtribe.

   1993, Carl L. Withner, The Cattleyas and Their Relatives: A Book in Six Parts

   1 more example

   The tempo of evolution in South American hamsters was very rapid – in the course of the Pliocene and Anthropocene 40 genera were formed here, at which time a series of them attained the level of tribe and subtribe (Oxymycteri, Phyllotiini, Ichthyomyini).

   1960, Doklady. Biological Sciences Sections, volumes 132–135, Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Biological Sciences, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 640, column 2

   Synonyms: subtribus