Chloropicus is a genus of birds in the woodpecker family Picidae that are native to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Chloropicus | |
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Bearded woodpecker Chloropicus namaquus | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Piciformes |
Family: | Picidae |
Tribe: | Melanerpini |
Genus: | Chloropicus Malherbe, 1845 |
Type species | |
Picus (Chloropicus) pyrrhogaster[1] Malherbe, 1845
| |
Species | |
3, see text |
The genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Alfred Malherbe in 1845 with the fire-bellied woodpecker (Chloropicus pyrrhogaster) as the type species.[2] The word Chloropicus is from the Greek khlōros meaning green and pikos meaning woodpecker.[3] Molecular genetic studies have shown that the genus Chloropicus is sister to the genus Dendropicos.[4][5] Species in this genus were previously sometimes assigned to Dendropicos.[6][7]
The genus contains the three species:[7]
Image | Scientific name | Common Name | Distribution |
---|---|---|---|
Chloropicus namaquus | Bearded woodpecker | Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe | |
Chloropicus xantholophus | Yellow-crested woodpecker | Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. | |
Chloropicus pyrrhogaster | Fire-bellied woodpecker | Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo and western Cameroon |