''Dendrocopos'' is a widespread

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family (biology), 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 ...

s 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 Ludwig Koch Carl Ludwig Koch (21 September 1778 – 23 August 1857) was a German entomologist and arachnologist. He was responsible for classifying a great number of spiders, including the Brazilian whiteknee tarantula and common house spider. He was born ...

. The name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''dendron'' meaning "tree" with ''kopos'' meaning "striking". The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

was designated as the

great spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker (''Dendrocopos major'') is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found acros ...

(''Dendrocopos major'') by the Scottish ornithologist

Edward Hargitt Edward Hargitt (3 May 1835 – 19 March 1895) was a Scottish ornithologist and landscape painter. Biography Edward Hargitt was born in Edinburgh, son of the composer Charles Hargitt. He studied art in the Royal Scottish Academy under Robert S ...

in 1890 in his catalogue of woodpeckers in the collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The genus at one time contained around 25 species. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

analysis of the pied woodpeckers published in 2015 found that ''Dendrocopos'' was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

. In the rearranged genera the number of species in ''Dendrocopos'' was reduced to 12 as listed below.

Taxonomy

Species

References

Further reading