The Puerto Rican woodpecker (''Melanerpes portoricensis'') is the only

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

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

and is one of the five species of the genus ''Melanerpes'' that occur in the

Antilles The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...

. Furthermore, it is the only resident species of the family Picidae in Puerto Rico. The species is common on the main island of Puerto Rico and rare on the island of

Vieques Vieques (; ), officially Isla de Vieques, is an island and municipality of Puerto Rico, in the northeastern Caribbean, part of an island grouping sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands. Vieques is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ...

Description

The Puerto Rican woodpecker has a black body and a bright red throat and breast. It has a white patch that runs across the head from eye to eye. Its flanks and lower body have a light

tangerine The tangerine is a type of citrus fruit that is orange in color. Its scientific name varies. It has been treated as a separate species under the name ''Citrus tangerina'' or ''Citrus'' × ''tangerina'', or treated as a variety of ''Citrus retic ...

coloration. As with the majority of birds

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

is present in this

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. The

male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...

s' throat and breast are more brightly colored than the females' with females tending to be all-around duller in coloration. There is also a substantial (~18%) difference in bill length between sexes.

Also males are slightly bigger than females. Its average weight is 56.0 grams. Its body length varies between 23 and 27 centimetres.

Distribution

The Puerto Rican woodpecker is a common and widely distributed species in Puerto Rico, mainly occurring in forests, coffee plantations, mangroves, palm tree groves, parks and gardens. Besides occurring in Puerto Rico it once inhabited the island of

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

. This stems from the fact that during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, St. Croix and the other

Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Cro ...

constituted a single landmass. It is believed that at this time the species extended its range to St. Croix and Vieques.

Behavior

The Puerto Rican woodpecker is said to resemble the behavior and structure of the North American red-headed woodpecker (''Melanerpes erythrocephalus''). Like the majority of woodpeckers this species uses its bill to drill holes in trunks in search of prey. The principal component of its diet are insects such as

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

larvae and others. Fruits are also important, composing one-quarter of its diet. Rarely it may eat

scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always en ...

s, geckos and coquís. Females lay from 1 to 6 white eggs in cavities carved by males. The nests of ''M. portoricensis'' are used by other Puerto Rican endemic birds such as the

Puerto Rican flycatcher The Puerto Rican flycatcher (''Myiarchus antillarum'') is a tyrant flycatcher endemic to the Puerto Rican archipelago and one of the 22 species belonging to the genus ''Myiarchus'' of the family Tyrannidae. See also * Fauna of Puerto Rico * ...

(''Myiarchus antillarum'') and the

yellow-shouldered blackbird The yellow-shouldered blackbird (''Agelaius xanthomus''), known in Puerto Rican Spanish as ''mariquita de Puerto Rico'' or ''capitán'', is a species of blackbird endemic to Puerto Rico. It has black plumage with a prominent yellow patch on the ...

(''Agelaius xanthomus'').

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1271247 Puerto Rican woodpecker Endemic birds of Puerto Rico Puerto Rican woodpecker Puerto Rican woodpecker