The African piculet (''Sasia africana''), sometimes placed in the monotypic genus ''Verreauxia'', is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in 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. M ...

. It is found in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, and Uganda. This species is described as locally common and has a very large range, so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

Description

The African piculet is a small bird some long. The male has a chestnut or reddish forehead and a greyish-green or olive-green crown whereas the forehead in the female is the same colour as the crown. The rest of the upper parts are rather dark green tinged with yellow. The wings and tail are brownish-black. The throat and breast are darkish grey and the belly is a slightly paler grey. The beak is black, the eye red and the legs reddish. The juvenile is similar to the adult but has grey or buffy tones mixed into the general hue of the plumage.

Ecology

The habitat of the African piculet is mainly lowland secondary forest. It is an active bird often seen flitting from place to place in pairs or threesomes, and sometimes joining mixed species flocks. It forages through the lower storeys of trees, bushes and dense vegetation. It is a relative of the woodpecker, and despite its small size, hammers its beak into branches and splits stems to get at beetle larvae. It also gleans other insects but seems uninterested in ants. Breeding has been observed between June and February in various parts of its range. The nest is built within five metres of the ground and the clutch size is usually two. Both parents are involved in raising the young.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1266812 Sasia Birds of Africa Birds of Central Africa Birds described in 1855 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN