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Two general patterns that have emerged from the intense studies on insect‐host plant associations are a predominance of specialists over generalists and a taxonomic conservatism in host‐plant use. In most insect‐host plant systems, explanations for these patterns must be based on biases in the processes of host colonizations, host shifts, and specialization, rather than cospeciation. In the present paper, we investigate changes in host range in the nymphalid butterfly tribe Nymphalini, using parsimony optimizations of host‐plant data on the butterfly phylogeny. In addition, we performed larval establishment tests to search for larval capacity to feed and survive on plants that have been lost from the female egg‐laying repertoire. Optimizations suggested an ancestral association with Urticaceae, and most of the tested species showed a capacity to feed on Urtica dioica regardless of actual host‐plant use. In addition …