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Woodpeckers
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specializes in exploiting cacti. Members of this family are chiefly known for their characteristic behaviour. They mostly forage for insect prey on the trunks and branches of trees, and often communicate by drumming with their beaks, producing a reverberatory sound that can be heard at some distance. Some species vary their diet with fruits, birds' eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion. They usually nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds. They sometimes com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pileated Woodpecker
The pileated woodpecker ( ; ''Dryocopus pileatus'') is a large, crow-sized woodpecker with a prominent red crest, white neck stripe, and a mostly black body. These woodpeckers are native to North America, where it is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species, and they are the third largest extant species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. It inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. The woodpecker is primarily an insectivore and eats insects that live in trees. Pileateds are famous for making large, nearly rectangular carvings into trees, which they either used to extract prey inside the tree or to make a nest. They are a species with a large range and an increasing population, causing them to be categorized as a species of "least concern" by the IUCN in 2016. Taxonomy The English naturalist Mark Catesby described and illustrated th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picinae
Picinae containing the true woodpeckers is one of four subfamilies that make up the woodpecker family Picidae. True woodpeckers are found over much of the world, but do not occur in Madagascar or Australasia. Woodpeckers gained their English name because of the habit of some species of tapping and pecking noisily on tree trunks with their beaks and heads. This is both a means of communication to signal possession of territory to their rivals, and a method of locating and accessing insect larvae found under the bark or in long winding tunnels in the tree or upright log. Physiology and behaviour Some woodpeckers and wrynecks in the order Piciformes have zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backward. These feet, though adapted for clinging to a vertical surface, can be used for grasping or perching. Several species have only three toes. The woodpecker's long tongue, in many cases as long as the woodpecker itself, can be darted forward to capture insects. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puffbird
The puffbirds and their relatives in the family Bucconidae are tropical tree-dwelling insectivorous birds that are found from South America up to Mexico. Together with their closest relatives, the jacamars, they form a divergent lineage within the order Piciformes, though the two families are sometimes elevated to a separate order Galbuliformes. Lacking the iridescent colours of the jacamars, puffbirds are mainly brown, rufous or grey, with large heads, large eyes, and flattened bills with a hooked tip. Their loose, abundant plumage and short tails makes them look stout and puffy, giving rise to the English name of the family. The species range in size from the rufous-capped nunlet, at and , to the white-necked puffbird, at up to and . Taxonomy Puffbirds get their common name from their fluffy plumage. In Spanish, they have been nicknamed ''bobo'' ("dummy") from their propensity to sit motionless waiting for prey. American naturalist Thomas Horsfield defined the Bucconidae in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jynginae
The wrynecks (genus ''Jynx'') are a small but distinctive group of small Old World woodpeckers. ''Jynx'' is from the Ancient Greek ''iunx'', the Eurasian wryneck. These birds get their English name from their ability to turn their heads almost 180°. When disturbed at the nest, they use this snake-like head twisting and hissing as a threat display. It has occasionally been called "snake-bird" for that reason. Like the true woodpeckers, wrynecks have large heads, long tongues, which they use to extract their insect prey, and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward and two backwards, but they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk. The sexes have a similar appearance. Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than in the true woodpeckers, but their chief prey is ants and other insects, which they find in decaying wood or almost bare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wryneck
The wrynecks (genus ''Jynx'') are a small but distinctive group of small Old World woodpeckers. ''Jynx'' is from the Ancient Greek ''iunx'', the Eurasian wryneck. These birds get their English name from their ability to turn their heads almost 180°. When disturbed at the nest, they use this snake-like head twisting and hissing as a threat display. It has occasionally been called "snake-bird" for that reason. Like the true woodpeckers, wrynecks have large heads, long tongues, which they use to extract their insect prey, and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward and two backwards, but they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk. The sexes have a similar appearance. Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than in the true woodpeckers, but their chief prey is ants and other insects, which they find in decaying wood or almost bare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piciformes
Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes (), the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of which the Picidae make up about half. In general, the Piciformes are insectivorous, although the barbets and toucans mostly eat fruit and the honeyguides are unique among birds in being able to digest beeswax (although insects make up the bulk of their diet). Nearly all Piciformes have parrot-like zygodactyl feet—two toes forward and two back, an arrangement that has obvious advantages for birds that spend much of their time on tree trunks. An exception are a few species of three-toed woodpeckers. The jacamars aside, Piciformes do not have down feathers at any age, only true feathers. They range in size from the rufous piculet at 8 centimetres in length, and weighing 7 grams, to the toco toucan, at 63 centimetres long, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacamar
The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ... family, and the two families are often separated into their own order, Galbuliformes, separate from the Piciformes. They are principally birds of low-altitude woodlands and forests, and particularly of forest edge and forest canopy, canopy. Taxonomy The placement of the combined puffbird and jacamar lineage was in question, with some bone and muscle features suggesting they may be more closely related to the Coraciiformes. However, analysis of nuclear DNA in a 2003 study placed them as sister group to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picus (bird)
''Picus'' is a genus of birds in the woodpecker family. It has representatives in Europe, Asia and North Africa. The genus name is Latin for "woodpecker". The genus ''Picus'' was erected by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. These are large woodpeckers, typically with green upperparts. They are found in forests or more open woodland, and lay their white eggs in a tree hole nest, typically on a bed of wood chips. ''Picus'' woodpeckers are primarily insect eaters, with several species specialising in taking ants or termites. Some species will also consume fruit or eggs. Insects are captured by a rapid outward flick of the long tongue and gummed to its tip by sticky saliva. This genus is less completely arboreal than some other woodpecker groups, and its members often feed on the ground, attacking anthills or termitaries. Taxonomy The genus ''Picus'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picumninae
The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with just three Asian and one African piculet, African species. Like the true woodpeckers, piculets have large heads, long tongues which they use to extract their insect prey and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backwards. However, they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk. Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than the true woodpeckers, so they look for insects and grubs mainly in decaying wood. Similarly, they re-use woodpecker holes for nesting, rather than making their own holes. The eggs are white, as with many hole nesters. Typically these birds have grey or dull green upperparts and dark-streaked white underparts. Systematics and evolution Although not well known from fossils, the evolu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gila Woodpecker
The Gila woodpecker (''Melanerpes uropygialis'') is a medium-sized woodpecker of the desert regions of the southwestern United States and western Mexico. In the U.S., they range through southeastern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Description The back and wings of this bird are spotted and barred with a black and white zebra-like pattern. The neck, throat, belly and head are greyish-tan in color. The male has a small red cap on the top of the head. Females and juveniles are similar, but both lack the red cap of the adult male. White wing patches are prominent in flight. The dark tail has white bars on the central tail feathers. The birds range from in length. This woodpecker's voice is a rolling ''churr'' sound. It also makes a ''yip yip yip'' sound and a ''kee-u, kee-u, kee-u'' sound. Its drum is long and steady. Distribution & habitat This woodpecker's habitat consists of low desert scrub typical of the Sonoran Desert, as well as arroyos (washes) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semnornis
The toucan-barbets are small birds in the genus ''Semnornis''. The genus was often included in the paraphyletic Capitonidae, barbets, but recently is usually classified into a distinct family (biology), family, Semnornithidae; alternatively, all barbets might be moved to the toucan family toucan, Ramphastidae as a subfamily, Semnornithinae. Toucan-barbets comprise only two species: the toucan barbet (''S. ramphastinus'') and the prong-billed barbet (''S. frantzii''). Taxonomy The Phylogenetics, phylogenetic relationship between the toucan-barbets and the eight other families in the Order (biology), order Piciformes is shown in the cladogram below. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill (ornithologist), Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). Description The ''Semnornis'' barbets are fairly large barbets, measuring between . The toucan barbet is larger than the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piculet
The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with just three Asian and one African species. Like the true woodpeckers, piculets have large heads, long tongues which they use to extract their insect prey and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backwards. However, they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk. Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than the true woodpeckers, so they look for insects and grubs mainly in decaying wood. Similarly, they re-use woodpecker holes for nesting, rather than making their own holes. The eggs are white, as with many hole nesters. Typically these birds have grey or dull green upperparts and dark-streaked white underparts. Systematics and evolution Although not well known from fossils, the evolution of piculets ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
