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Picoides dorsalis

Picoides dorsalis

Cladus: Eukaryota
Supergroup: Opisthokonta
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Deuterostomia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
Superclassis: Tetrapoda
Classis: Aves
Subclassis: Carinatae
Infraclassis: Neornithes
Parvclassis: Neognathae
Ordo: Piciformes
Familia: Picidae
Subfamilia: Picinae
Genus: Picoides
Species: Picoides dorsalis
Subspecies: P. d. bacatus - P. d. dorsalis - P. d. fasciatus

Name

Picoides dorsalis S.F. Baird, 1858

Reference

Report of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practical and economical route for a railroad from the Mississiippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Birds 9 p.xxviii,97,100

Vernacular names
Internationalization
Deutsch: Fichtenspecht
English: American Three-toed Woodpecker
Français: Pic à dos rayé

The American Three-toed woodpecker, Picoides dorsalis is a medium-sized woodpecker (family Picidae).

This woodpecker has a length of 21 cm (8¾ inches) and a wingspan of 38 cm (15 inches) and closely resembles the Black-backed Woodpecker, which is also three-toed. Until recently, it was considered to be the same species as the Eurasian Three-toed Woodpecker, (P. tridactylus).[1] Adults are black on the head, wings and rump, and white from the throat to the belly; the flanks are white with black bars. The back is white with black bars and the tail is black with the white outer feathers barred with black. The adult male has a yellow cap.

The breeding habitat is coniferous forests across western Canada, Alaska and the midwestern United States.

The female lays 3 to 7 but most often 4 eggs in a nest cavity in a dead conifer or sometimes a live tree or pole. The pair excavates a new nest each year.

This bird is normally a permanent resident, but northern birds may move south and birds at high elevations may move to lower levels in winter.

Three-toed Woodpeckers forage on conifers in search of wood-boring beetle larvae or other insects. They may also eat fruit and tree sap.

These birds often move into areas with large numbers of insect-infested trees, often following a forest fire or flooding. This bird is likely to give way to the Black-backed Woodpecker where the two species compete for habitat.

Subspecies

* P. d. dorsalis, nominate Western race.
* P. d. fasciatus, Rocky Mountain race.

References

1. ^ Zink, Robert M.; Sievert Rohwer, Alexander V. Andreev & Donna Dittman (July 1995). "Trans-Beringia Comparisons of Mitochondrial DNA Differentiation in Birds". Condor (Cooper Ornithological Society) 97 (3): 639–649. doi:10.2307/1369173. JSTOR 1369173. http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v097n03/p0639-p0649.pdf.

* BirdLife International (2006). Picoides dorsalis. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 12 May 2006.

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Source: Wikipedia, Wikispecies: All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License