Yellow-throated woodpecker
The yellow-throated woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The yellow-throated woodpecker was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Picus flavigula in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The yellow-throated woodpecker is now placed in the genus Piculus that was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix in 1824. The generic name is a diminutive of the Latin word Picus meaning "woodpecker". The specific epithet flavigula combines the Latin flavus meaning "yellow" and gula meaning "throat".Three subspecies of yellow-throated woodpecker are recognized:
- P. f. flavigula
- P. f. magnus
- P. f. erythropis
Description
The yellow-throated woodpecker is long and weighs. Males and females have the same plumage except on their heads. Males of the nominate subspecies P. f. flavigula are red from forehead to hindneck and on the malar ; the former area has black feather bases showing through. The rest of the head including the chin and throat is bright golden-yellow. The female has red only on the nape and the rest of its crown is golden-yellow with green feather tips; its head is otherwise like the male's. Nominate adults have yellowish green upperparts that are brighter on the shoulders and back. Their flight feathers are mostly brownish black with cinnamon patches on the inner webs. Their tail is black with greenish edges on the feathers. Their underparts are green; the breast feathers have whitish centers and black tips while the belly and undertail coverts appear barred or scaly with black. Their shortish beak is black with a paler base, their iris brown, and the legs dark green-gray. Juveniles have duller and greener upperparts than adults and a yellow throat but are otherwise darker on their underparts. Males may have a small red patch on the crown and females have an entirely green crown.Subspecies P. f. magnus is identical to the nominate except that the male does not have a red malar area. P. f. erythropis differs significantly from the other two subspecies. It is smaller. Males have more extensive red on the crown, and the red of its malar region extends around under the chin and throat as well. Females have a golden-yellow forecrown, malar, and throat, but with some red on the throat. Both sexes' underparts appear more barred than spotted or scaly.
Distribution and habitat
The subspecies of yellow-throated woodpecker are found thus:P. f. flavigula, extreme eastern Colombia east through southern Venezuela and the Guianas and south into northern BrazilP. f. magnus, southeastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru into northern Bolivia and east into western BrazilP. f. erythropis, separately in eastern Brazil's Pernambuco state and between the states of Bahia and São Paulo in southeastern BrazilThe yellow-throated woodpecker inhabits the interior and edges of mature terra firme and várzea forests. Subspecies P. f. erythropis is mostly found in drier caatinga habitat. It is a species of the lowlands, ranging in elevation from sea level in the Guianas and Brazil to in Ecuador and in Peru.