''Lepidocolaptes'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of birds in the ovenbird family Furnariidae. These are relatively small

woodcreeper The woodcreepers (Dendrocolaptinae) comprise a subfamily of suboscine passerine birds endemic to the Neotropics. They have traditionally been considered a distinct family Dendrocolaptidae, but most authorities now place them as a subfamily of the ...

s (subfamily

Dendrocolaptinae The woodcreepers (Dendrocolaptinae) comprise a subfamily of suboscine passerine birds endemic to the Neotropics. They have traditionally been considered a distinct family Dendrocolaptidae, but most authorities now place them as a subfamily of the ...

) with fairly long, thin and slightly decurved bills.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Lepidocolaptes'' was introduced in 1853 by the German naturalist

Ludwig Reichenbach Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist and ornithologist. It was he who first requested Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate models for scientific education and museu ...

. The name combines the

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

''lepis'' meaning "scale" with ''kolaptēs'' meaning "pecker". The

type species In 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 species that contains the biological type specimen ...

was designated as the scaled woodcreeper by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother o ...

in 1855.

Species

The genus contains 11 species: The lesser woodcreeper was formerly included in this genus, but is now in ''

Xiphorhynchus ''Xiphorhynchus'' is a genus of bird in the woodcreeper subfamily (Dendrocolaptinae). Species It contains the following 14 species: The straight-billed woodcreeper and Zimmer's woodcreeper are now separated in ''Dendroplex''. References Exte ...

''.

References

Bird genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Ludwig Reichenbach {{Furnariidae-stub