Eurasian Three-toed Woodpecker
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The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker (''Picoides tridactylus'') is a medium-sized
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 ...
that is found from northern Europe across northern Asia to Japan.


Taxonomy

The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
in the tenth edition of his ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
''. He coined the
binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...
''Picus tridactylus''. The type locality is Sweden. The specific epithet is from 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 ...
''tridaktulos'' meaning "three-toed" (''tri-'' is "three-" and ''daktulos'' is toe). The species is now placed in the
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 ...
'' Picoides'' that was introduced by the French naturalist
Bernard Germain de Lacépède Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède (; 26 December 17566 October 1825) was a French natural history, naturalist and an active freemason. He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon's g ...
in 1799. The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker was formerly considered
conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...
with the American three-toed woodpecker (''Picoides dorsalis''). Eight
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
are recognised: * ''P. t. tridactylus'' (Linnaeus, 1758) – northern Europe to the southern
Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.
and to south-eastern Siberia and north-eastern China * ''P. t. alpinus'' Brehm, CL, 1831 – central and south-eastern Europe to western Ukraine and Romania * ''P. t. crissoleucus'' ( Reichenbach, 1854) – northern Ural Mountains to eastern Siberia * ''P. t. albidior'' Stejneger, 1885 – eastern Siberia and
Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...
* ''P. t. tianschanicus''
Buturlin Buturlin, feminine: Buturlina () is a Russian surname of a Russian nobility, Russian noble . Notable people with this surname include: * Alexander Buturlin (1694–1767), a Russian general * Anna Artemevna Buturlina (1777–1854), Russian artist an ...
, 1907
– eastern Kazakhstan and western China * ''P. t. kurodai'' Yamashina, 1930 – north-eastern China and North Korea * ''P. t. inouyei'' Yamashina, 1943 – Japan (
Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...
) * ''P. t. funebris'' Verreaux, J, 1871 – central China The subspecies ''P. t. funebris'' is sometimes treated as a separate species, the dark-bodied woodpecker.


Description

The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker is in length, just a little smaller than 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 ...
. The adult has black and white plumage except for the yellow crown of the male. Neither sex has any red feathers. It has black wings and rump, and white from the throat to the belly; the flanks are white with black bars. The back is white with black bars, and the tail is black with the white outer feathers barred with black. Juveniles of both sexes have a yellow crown. The voice call of the Eurasian three-toed woodpecker is a ''kik'' or ''chik'' The breeding habitat is
conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...
ous forests across the
Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. Th ...
from Norway to Korea. There are also populations in the
Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...
and the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...
. Three-toed woodpeckers nest in a cavity in a dead conifer or sometimes a live tree or pole. The pair excavates a new nest each year. This bird is normally a permanent resident, but northern birds may move south and birds at high elevations may move to lower levels in winter. Three-toed woodpeckers forage on conifers in search of wood-boring
beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...
larvae or other
insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s. They may also eat fruit and tree sap. These birds often move into areas with large numbers of insect-infested trees, often following a forest fire or flooding.


Status

A survey conducted by
BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
in 2015 estimated the European population of the species at 1,200,000–2,900,000 adults. As the European population is estimated to be around 20% of the global population, the latter is roughly estimated at 6,000,000–14,500,000 adults worldwide. Although some decline was observed in the European population between 1970 and 2000, the overall population is considered to be fairly stable; and due to the species' wide range and large population, it is classified by 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 ...
at a
conservation status The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation ...
of "
Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
".


Notes


References


Sources

*


Further reading

* Gorman, Gerard (2004): Woodpeckers of Europe: A Study of the European Picidae. Bruce Coleman, UK. . *


External links


Images at www.naturlichter.com
{{Authority control Picoides Birds of Eurasia Birds described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus