The red-naped sapsucker (''Sphyrapicus nuchalis'') is a medium-sized North American

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. ...

. Long thought to be a subspecies of the

yellow-bellied sapsucker The yellow-bellied sapsucker (''Sphyrapicus varius'') is a medium-sized woodpecker that breeds in Canada and the northeastern United States. Taxonomy The yellow-bellied sapsucker was described and illustrated using a hand-coloured plate by the E ...

, it is now known to be a distinct species.

Systematics

The red-naped sapsucker is one of four North American

s in the

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 ...

Sphyrapicus The sapsuckers are species of North American woodpeckers in the genus ''Sphyrapicus''. Taxonomy and systematics The genus ''Sphyrapicus'' was introduced in 1858 by the American naturalist Spencer Baird with the yellow-bellied sapsucker (''Sphyr ...

''. It has no subspecies. First described by

Spencer Fullerton Baird Spencer Fullerton Baird (; February 3, 1823 – August 19, 1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, Herpetology, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He ...

in 1858, it was initially thought to be a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of the

. However, there are significant genetic differences between this species and the yellow-bellied sapsucker, and the

American Ornithologists' Union The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

recognized it as a distinct species in the seventh edition of its North American birds checklist, published in 1998. Genetic analysis has shown that the red-naped sapsucker is a

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

with (and very closely related to) the

red-breasted sapsucker The red-breasted sapsucker (''Sphyrapicus ruber'') is a medium-sized woodpecker of the forests of the west coast of North America. Description Adults have a red head and upper chest; they have a white lower belly and rump. They are black on the ...

, and that these two species form a superspecies with the

. All three species are known to hybridize with each other, with hybrids between red-naped and red-breasted sapsuckers proving particularly common. The genus name ''Sphyrapicus'' is a combination of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

words ''sphura'', meaning "hammer" and ''pikos'', meaning "woodpecker". The specific name ''nuchalis'' is a modern

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word meaning "of the

nape The nape is the back of the neck. In technical anatomical/medical terminology, the nape is also called the nucha (from the Medieval Latin rendering of the Arabic , "spinal marrow"). The corresponding adjective is ''nuchal'', as in the term ''nu ...

". In its

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

, "red-naped", refers to the red patch on the back of the bird's head, while "sapsucker" refers to its distinctive method of feeding.

Description

The red-naped sapsucker is a medium-sized woodpecker, measuring long and weighing . Adults have a black head with a red forehead, white stripes, and a red spot on the nape; they have a white lower belly and rump. They have a yellow breast and upper belly. They are black on the back and wings with white bars; they have a large white wing patch. Adult males have a red throat patch; for females, the lower part of the throat is red, the upper part white. Red-naped-sapsucker

Habitat and range

Their breeding habitat is mixed forests in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

and

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

areas of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. They nest in a cavity in a dead tree. Other species which nest in tree cavities reuse nests formerly used by these birds. To provide habitat and foraging for woodpeckers, forest management objectives on public land include snag and live tree retention. Numerous studies have shown woodpeckers will readily nest in logged areas as long as some stands are left standing. The drastic change in forest habitat caused by logging and tree retention drastically effects the quality of nesting sites and is detrimental to the red-naped sapsuckers habitat. These birds migrate south and vacate areas at higher elevations.

Behavior

Feeding

True to their name, and like other

sapsucker The sapsuckers are species of North American woodpeckers in the genus ''Sphyrapicus''. Taxonomy and systematics The genus ''Sphyrapicus'' was introduced in 1858 by the American naturalist Spencer Baird with the yellow-bellied sapsucker (''Sphyra ...

s, they drill holes in trees and eat the sap as well as insects attracted to it. They sometimes catch insects in flight; they also eat seeds and berries.

Breeding

Red-naped sapsuckers typically lay 3–7 white eggs. The young are altricial, naked, and helpless. The eggs are incubated for 12–13 days and the young are able to fly and leave the nest 25–29 days after hatching. Throughout western North America, red-naped sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) nests have been described primarily in trembling aspen (''Populus tremuloides'') with decay-softened wood. Heart-wood decay is reported to infect the roots of most aspens that red-naped sapsuckers choose to excavate for nesting. Red-naped sapsuckers typically excavate their first cavity relatively close to the ground and over subsequent years make progressively higher excavations. Most (68%) nest trees were live and 75% had broken tops. Western larch (Larix occidentalis) and birch were greatly over utilized compared to their availability.

References

Cited texts

* *

External links

Red-naped sapsucker - ''Sphyrapicus nuchalis''
- USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
Red-naped sapsucker Species Account
– Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Red-naped sapsucker
at eNature.com *
Project Sapsucker
Royal Alberta Museum * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1265058

red-naped sapsucker The red-naped sapsucker (''Sphyrapicus nuchalis'') is a medium-sized North American woodpecker. Long thought to be a subspecies of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, it is now known to be a distinct species. Systematics The red-naped sapsucker is on ...

Native birds of Western Canada Native birds of the Western United States