The black-dotted piculet (''Picumnus nigropunctatus''), also known as the black-spotted piculet, 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 lightweig ...

in subfamily

Picumninae The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with just three Asian and one African species. Like the true woodpeckers, piculets have large heads, long tongues which the ...

of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is

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 ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The taxonomy of the black-dotted piculet is unsettled. It has variously been treated as

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 organis ...

with the white-bellied piculet (''P. spilogaster'') and with the golden-spangled piculet (''P. exilis''). It has also been treated as a junior synonym of ''P. salvinii'' which itself has been subsumed into the golden-spangled piculet, and as a synonym of one subspecies of scaled piculet (''P. squamulatus obsoletus'').HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world (Taxonomic notes). Version 7. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022Winkler, H. and D. A. Christie (2020). Golden-spangled Piculet (''Picumnus exilis''), 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.gospic1.01 retrieved January 10, 2023 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 ...

(IOC) and BirdLife International's '' Handbook of the Birds of the World'' treat this taxon as a species.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 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 202 ...

treats it as the scaled piculet subspecies ''P. squamulatus obsoletus''.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 The South American Classification Committee of 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 ...

does not recognize it as a species.

Description

The black-dotted piculet resembles other members of the genus '' Picumnus''. Its most distinctive mark is pale pure yellow underparts with sparse black dots on the lower breast and usually on the belly 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 ...

. In southeastern Sucre, a few have finely barred chests. Rare individuals with scaly throats and pale buffy (rather than yellow) underparts resemble the scaled piculet, which can be distinguished by its scaly lower underparts. The crown is black with narrow scarlet streaks on the forepart and conspicuous white dots on the rear part, or throughout in some females. The upperparts are light olive-brown, slightly yellowish, with dusky spots on the shoulders and back.

Distribution and habitat

The black-dotted piculet is locally common in areas with bushes or trees (possibly including

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s), near water or waterlogged, in the Venezuelan coastal lowlands between southeastern Sucre and southern

Delta Amacuro Delta Amacuro State ( es, Estado Delta Amacuro, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, and is the location of the Orinoco Delta. The Paria Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean are found to the north, Bolívar State is found to the south, the Atlantic ...

. In elevation it occurs almost entirely below

Behavior

Feeding

The black-dotted piculet forages in pairs, often widely separated, or alone. They occasionally join

mixed-species foraging 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. They often "hitch sideways along branches," and they peck or drill in rotting wood and at broken ends of branches.

Vocalization

The black-dotted piculet's

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...

is "2 to several extremely high, thin notes, each slightly lower than the preceding, ''tseeet, tseeet, tsee,'' etc." Possibly it is also used as a contact call. Foraging birds may repeat the song a few times and then fall silent for several minutes.

Status

The IUCN has assessed the black-dotted piculet as being of Least Concern, though it has a limited range and its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3382580 black-dotted piculet Birds of Venezuela black-dotted piculet black-dotted piculet