Dendrocoptes


Dendrocoptes is a genus of woodpeckers in the native to Eurasia.

Taxonomy

The genus Dendrocoptes was erected by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1863 with the middle spotted woodpecker as the type species. The name combines the Ancient Greek dendron meaning "tree" and koptō meaning "to strike". A 2015 molecular phylogenetic analysis of the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that the genus Dendrocopos was polyphyletic. As part of the reorganisation to create monophyletic genera, three species from Dendrocopos were moved to the resurrected genus Dendrocoptes. The taxonomic committee of the British Ornithologists' Union recommended an alternative arrangement in which the genera Dendrocoptes and Leiopicus were combined into a larger Dendropicos. The yellow-crowned woodpecker is closely related to the species in this genus.
The genus contains three species:
ImageScientific nameCommon NameDistribution
Dendrocoptes doraeArabian woodpeckersouthwestern Saudi Arabia and Yemen-
Dendrocoptes auricepsBrown-fronted woodpeckerAfghanistan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan.
Dendrocoptes mediusMiddle spotted woodpeckernorthern Spain and France east to Poland and Ukraine, and south to central Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, Lithuania, Latvia, Turkey, the Caucasus, and Iran