All species › Woodpeckers and allies › Woodpeckers › White-bellied Piculet
White-bellied Piculet | Picumnus spilogaster
Witbuikdwergspecht | Carpinterito ventriblanco | Pica-pau-anão-de-pescoço-branco
The White-bellied Piculet is a piculet of north-eastern South America, with a greyish-brown back and white underparts. In the guide area it is known only as a very rare vagrant to eastern Colombia, along the Orinoco. It lives mainly in riverine forest, gallery forest and mangroves.
Voice
A high, thin, rapid trill, often slightly descending, and short, sharp tsit calls. Drums softly and briefly on thin twigs; a soft tapping is often heard while it feeds.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a short, pointed bill. The upperparts are greyish brown and almost unmarked. The crown is black; in the male with red dots on the forecrown and white ones behind, in the female with white dots only. The underparts are white, with small black spots or scales on the throat, breast and flanks. The short tail is black with white stripes.
Confusion species
Golden-spangled Piculet Picumnus exilis has an olive-green back with yellow spangles and yellowish, barred underparts. Orinoco Piculet Picumnus pumilus has a plain olive-green back and yellowish, finely barred underparts. Scaled Piculet Picumnus squamulatus is brownish olive and heavily scaled above and below.
Habitat
Riverine and várzea forest, gallery forest, mangroves and dry woodland and scrub in savanna country, in the lowlands. It searches thin twigs, vines and dead wood for ants, termites and their larvae and eggs. The nest is a small cavity it excavates in a thin dead branch or trunk.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In the guide area only as a very rare vagrant in eastern Colombia, along the Orinoco; there is no regular site. Not recorded in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia or the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in northern and eastern Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Brazil.
How and when to look
A vagrant may turn up in gallery and riverine forest along the Orinoco, on the border with Venezuela. Look for the combination of a greyish-brown back and white underparts with fine black spots.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally, habitat is lost through the clearing of mangroves and coastal and riverine forest.
Scientific name
Picumnus spilogaster | Sundevall, 1866
Sundevall described the species in 1866 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Picumnus was introduced in 1825 by Temminck. The genus name refers to Picumnus, a Roman god of fertility and agriculture, brother of Pilumnus, whose name is related to Latin picus, 'woodpecker'. The species name comes from Greek spilos, 'spot', and gastēr, 'belly', for the spotted belly. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Guianas.