The Iberian green woodpecker (''Picus sharpei'') is a medium-sized

woodpecker 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. ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found 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 found else ...

to the Iberian peninsula. It was formerly considered as a subspecies of the

European green woodpecker The European green woodpecker (''Picus viridis'') is a large green woodpecker with a bright red crown and a black moustache. Males have a red centre to the moustache stripe which is absent in females. It is resident across much of Europe and the ...

but differs in having little black on the head and a dusky rather than a black ring around each eye.

Taxonomy

The Iberian green woodpecker was described by Howard Saunders in 1872 and given the binomial name ''Gecinus sharpei''. He chose the specific epithet to honour his friend, the English

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several mo ...

, who he credited with first distinguishing it from the

(''Picus viridis'') and

Levaillant's woodpecker Levaillant's woodpecker (''Picus vaillantii'') or Levaillant's green woodpecker, is a large African member of the woodpecker family Picidae. Taxonomy Levaillant's woodpecker is sometimes considered a subspecies of the European green woodpecker ...

(''Picus vaillantii''). The Iberian green woodpecker was usually treated as a subspecies of the

but two separate studies published in 2011 found that there were significant differences in both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences between the two populations. Based on these results the Iberian green woodpecker is now considered as a separate species. The species 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 "unispe ...

: no subspecies are recognised.

References

External links

Blasco-Zumeta, Javier and Gerd-Michael, Heinze, "Ageing and sexing"
Iberian green woodpecker Birds of Southern Europe Fauna of the Iberian Peninsula Iberian green woodpecker Iberian green woodpecker {{woodpecker-stub