The striped woodpecker (''Veniliornis lignarius'') 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 subfamily Picinae of the
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. ...
family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile.
Taxonomy and systematics
The striped woodpecker was originally described as ''Picus Lignarius''. It was later placed in ''Dyctiopicus'', which was merged into ''Dendrocopos'', which in turn was merged into ''
Picoides
''Picoides'' is a genus of woodpeckers (family Picidae) that are native to Eurasia and North America, commonly known as three-toed woodpeckers.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Picoides'' was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépè ...
'' where it and its
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 ...
the
checkered woodpecker (''V. mixtus'') were considered outliers. In 2006, Moore et al. published research on
mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...
COI and
Cyt ''b'' sequences
In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is called t ...
which suggested that the two belong in genus ''Veniliornis''.
That treatment is now (2023) followed by the
International Ornithological Committee
The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...
and
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...
's ''
Handbook of the Birds of the World
The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...
''.
[HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022] However, starting in 2018, the American Ornithological Society
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 ...
and the Clements taxonomy
''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world.
The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 2022 ...
moved all species of genus ''Veniliornis'' into genus ''Dryobates
''Dryobates'' is a genus of birds in the woodpecker family Picidae. The species are widely distributed and occur in both Eurasia and the Americas.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Dryobates'' was named by the German naturalist Friedrich Boie in 1826 with t ...
''.[R. Terry Chesser, Kevin J. Burns, Carla Cicero, Jon L. Dunn, Andrew W. Kratter, Irby J. Lovette, Pamela C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., Douglas F. Stotz, Benjamin M. Winger, and Kevin Winker. "Fifty-ninth supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s ''Check-list of North American Birds''". ''The Auk'' 2018, vol. 135:798-813 retrieved December 13, 2022][Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved November 10, 2022] In addition, there have been suggestions that the striped and checkered woodpeckers are conspecific
Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species.
Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...
.[Winkler, H., D. A. Christie, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Striped Woodpecker (''Dryobates lignarius''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.strwoo6.01 retrieved January 23, 2023]
The striped woodpecker is treated as 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 "unispec ...
by all of the above taxonomic systems. However, the population in Bolivia differs in several ways from that further south and may deserve to be treated as a subspecies or species ''V.'' (or ''D.'') ''(lignarius) puncticeps''.[
]
Description
The striped woodpecker is long and weighs . Males and females have the same plumage except on their heads. Adults of both sexes have a black forehead and crown, a blackish hindneck, and a generally white face with a blackish stripe back and down from the eye and a black malar stripe. Males have some streaks or spots on the crown and a red to orange-red nape. The female's nape is black where the male's is red and its crown usually is solid black. Both sexes' upperparts are brownish black, with white scallops on northern birds and narrow white bars on southern ones. Their flight feathers are barred black and white. Their tail is dark brownish black with narrow white or buff-white bars. Their underparts are white with a yellow or buff tinge, and black streaks on the breast and belly and black bars on the flanks and undertail coverts
A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts
The ear coverts are s ...
. Juveniles are duller and browner than adults, with irregular bars on their upperparts and heavy streaks and bars on their underparts. Males have a red crown and females a small red patch on the crown.[
]
Distribution and habitat
The striped woodpecker has two disjunct populations. One is in west-central and southern Bolivia and extreme northern Argentina. The other is in central and southern Chile and southwestern Argentina. It inhabits a variety of landscapes, most of them semi-open to open forest. They include moist to humid forests dominated by ''Nothofagus
''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...
'' or ''Podocarpus
''Podocarpus'' () is a genus of conifers, the most numerous and widely distributed of the podocarp family, the Podocarpaceae. The name comes from Greek πούς (poús, “foot”) + καρπός (karpós, “fruit”). ''Podocarpus'' species ...
'', ''Polylepis
''Polylepis'' is a genus comprising 28 recognised shrub and tree species, that are endemic to the mid- and high-elevation regions of the tropical Andes. This group is unique in the rose family in that it is predominantly wind-pollinated. They are ...
'' woodland, and dryer areas with cacti and scattered trees. In the north it also occurs in the interior of mature wet forest with watercourses, and both north and south occurs in lightly-treed pastures, orchards and plantations, and gardens. In elevation it ranges between in Bolivia but only up to in Chile and in Argentina.[
]
Behavior
Movement
The striped woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range but for some elevational changes between winter and summer. Reports of northward winter migration from the south appear to be inaccurate.[
]
Feeding
The striped woodpecker usually forages alone but occasionally joins mixed-species feeding flock
A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...
s. Its diet has not been defined in detail but it is known to feed on adult and larval insects. It takes its food mainly by gleaning and probing but also pecks and hammers to reach below the substrate surface.[
]
Breeding
The striped woodpecker is believed to nest between June and September in Bolivia and between October and January in Chile and Argentina. It excavates a nest cavity in a tree or cactus, typically between about above the ground. The clutch size is three to five eggs; the incubation period and time to fledging are not known. Both sexes provision nestlings.[
]
Vocalization
The striped woodpecker makes a loud "peek" and also a "trill as long-distance call".[
]
Status
The IUCN
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 assesed the striped woodpecker as being of Least Concern. It has a large range, and though its population size is not known it is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified.[ It occurs in several national parks in Chile and Argentina but is poorly known and "requires study".][
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1270753
striped woodpecker
Birds of the Bolivian Andes
Birds of Chile
Birds of Patagonia
Birds of the Southern Andes
striped woodpecker