The Arabian woodpecker (''Dendrocoptes dorae'') or Sarat woodpecker, is a bird species of the family

Picidae 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. ...

, native to the

Sarawat Mountains The Sarawat Mountains (), also known as the Sarat in singular case, is a mountain range in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula. In a broad sense, it runs parallel to the eastern coast of the Red Sea, and thus encompasses the mountains of ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

and

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. It is the only woodpecker that breeds on the Arabian Peninsula. This species was first described in 1935 by the American naturalist

George Latimer Bates George Griswold Latimer Bates (March 21, 1863, Abingdon, Illinois US – January 31, 1940 Chelmsford UK), LL.D., British Ornithologists' Union, M.B.O.U. was an American natural history, naturalist. He lived in central Africa and travelled widely, ...

and the Scottish zoologist

Norman Boyd Kinnear Sir Norman Boyd Kinnear (11 August 1882 – 11 August 1957) was a Scottish zoologist and ornithologist. Early life Kinnear was the younger son of wealthy Edinburgh architect Charles George Hood Kinnear and his wife, Jessie Jane, and came from ...

, the scientific name being proposed by their occasional co-worker, the British

Arabist An Arabist is someone, often but not always from outside the Arab world, who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture, culture (usually including Arabic literature). Origins Arabists began in Al Andalus, medieval Muslim ...

St John Philby Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah (), was a British Arabist, advisor, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King A ...

, in honour of his wife Dora. Some taxonomic authorities continue to place the species in ''

Dendrocopos ''Dendrocopos'' is a widespread genus of woodpeckers from Asia, Europe and Northern Africa. The species range from the Philippines to the British Isles. Taxonomy The genus ''Dendrocopos'' was introduced in 1816 by the German naturalist Carl Lud ...

'', while others place it genus ''

Dendropicos ''Dendropicos'' is a genus of woodpeckers in the family Picidae. They are small woodpeckers that are native to the Sub-Saharan Africa, sub-Saharan woodlands and forests. Taxonomy The genus ''Dendropicos'' was introduced by the French ornithologi ...

''.

Description

The Arabian woodpecker grows to a length of about . The male has a brownish or pale grey head with a bright red patch on the crown and nape. The back, wings, and tail are olive-grey to brown streaked with white, and the wings are barred with white. The underparts are grey streaked with white and the belly has the central area suffused with red. The female is similar but lacks the red crown patch. The call has been rendered as "pweek pit-pit-pit-pit-pit-pit-pit-ptptpt" and the bird occasionally drums on branches.

Distribution and habitat

The species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the mountains and foothills of the southwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula, being restricted to southwestern Saudi Arabia and western Yemen. It is found in a range of woodland habitats including, at lower altitudes, patches of ''

Ficus ''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family (biology), family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few spe ...

'',

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

and ''

Pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with about 578 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. Common names include pandan, screw palm and screw pine. The genus is classified ...

''. It is present in evergreen riparian forested corridors, on shading trees in coffee plantations, in orchards, on terraced cropland with isolated trees, and in woods and spinneys of ''

Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

'',

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

and '' Dracaena''. Its altitudinal range is from sea level to but it probably only breeds between about .

Behaviour

Like other woodpeckers, the Arabian woodpecker feeds on insect grubs which it extracts from holes in tree trunks and branches with its long tongue. It also feeds on spiders, aphids, fig-wasps and flying insects. The nest is in a hole in the trunk or branch of a tree, usually below , excavated in dead wood. The main breeding season is from March to May, but a second brood is sometimes reared in November in Yemen.

Status

''D. dorae'' is an uncommon bird, and the total number of mature individuals is estimated to be less than ten thousand. The population trend is probably downward as the bird's

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

is being degraded by the removal of trees for firewood and

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

manufacture, and the clearance of wooded land for agriculture. Overgrazing by livestock means there is little regeneration of trees in some areas. For these reasons, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed this bird's conservation status as "

Near Threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as that may be vulnerable to Endangered species, endangerment in the ne ...

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q27074884, from2=Q623784 Dendrocoptes Birds of the Arabian Peninsula Birds described in 1935 Taxa named by George Latimer Bates Taxa named by Norman Boyd Kinnear Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN