The arrowhead piculet or Guianan piculet (''Picumnus minutissimus'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

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 t ...

of the woodpecker 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. ...

. It is found in

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

and possibly

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

and

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved November 10, 2022

Taxonomy and systematics

The arrowhead piculet is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

. However, subspecies ''P. spilogaster pallidus'' of the white-bellied piculet has been considered a subspecies of arrowhead. The white-bellied as a whole has also at times been treated as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of the arrowhead piculet.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022

Description

The arrowhead piculet is long and weighs . Adult males have a black cap with a red patch on the forehead and white spots on the rest of it. Their face is mostly dark brown with white tips on some feathers and a white line behind the eye. Their upperparts are olive brown whose feathers have blackish wedge-shaped centers, a very thin black bar at their tip, and a white spot just inside the tip. Their rump is plainer but their undertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind t ...

can have dark bars. Their flight feathers are brown with light buffy edges, especially on the secondaries and

tertials Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...

. Their tail is brownish black; the innermost pair of feathers have mostly white inner webs and the outer two pairs have a white stripe on the outer webs. Their chin, throat, and sides of the neck are whitish with blackish bars. Their underparts are white with a brownish buff tinge on the belly and flanks; the underparts' feathers have brownish black fringes that give a scaly appearance. Adult females are identical but for no red on the forehead. Juveniles have a plain brown crown; their upperparts are browner than the adults' and have blackish bars. Their underparts are duller with a more obscure pattern.Winkler, H., D. A. Christie, C. J. Sharpe, and A. Motis (2020). Arrowhead Piculet (''Picumnus minutissimus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.arrpic1.01 retrieved January 11, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The South American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

considers the arrowhead piculet to be

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 Suriname with no records elsewhere. The

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

adds that it is "possibly also in adjacent Guyana and French Guiana". The

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

lists it simply in

the Guianas The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, formerly British, Dutch, and French Guiana respectiv ...

.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved July 24, 2022 Despite its rather small range, it inhabits a wide variety of landscapes, from mangroves,

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

, plantations,

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

Behavior

Movement

The arrowhead piculet is a year-round resident.

Feeding

The arrowhead piculet's diet has not been fully described but is known to include ants and small beetles. It forages somewhat like a

chickadee The chickadees are a group of North American birds in the family Paridae included in the genus '' Poecile''. Species found in North America are referred to as chickadees; species found elsewhere in the world are called tits. They are small-si ...

, hanging from twigs and small branches and hammering on them.

Breeding

The arrowhead piculet's breeding season is from March to December. Males excavate a nest hole with some contribution by the female, placing it as high as above the ground. The clutch size is two or three eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs for 12 to 14 days and both provision nestlings. Fledging occurs about 28 days after hatch.

Vocalization

The arrowhead piculet makes a " ries of c. 14 thin notes, 'it-it-it-it...', or 'kee kee kee'." It also makes a "loud twitter" during agonistic encounters.

Status

The

IUCN 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 status ...

originally assessed the arrowhead piculet as being of Least Concern, then in 2012 uplisted it to Near Threatened, and then in 2019 again rated it of Least Concern. Though it has a limited range and an unknown population size, the latter is believed to be stable. Deforestation does pose a threat.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1269277 arrowhead piculet Birds of the Guiana Shield arrowhead piculet Taxonomy articles created by Polbot