All species › Woodpeckers and allies › Woodpeckers › Lineated Woodpecker
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Lineated Woodpecker | Dryocopus lineatus
Gestreepte helmspecht | Carpintero lineado
The Lineated Woodpecker is a large, black woodpecker with a pointed red crest and white stripes on the neck and shoulders. It lives along forest edges, in open woodland and in semi-open country with large trees, and is therefore one of the most frequently seen large woodpeckers in the guide area. Its loud, ringing call carries far.
Voice
A loud, ringing series wic-wic-wic-wic, carrying far, and a short, sharp pik or pik-krrr. Both sexes drum in a long, accelerating roll; Pale-billed Woodpecker, by contrast, drums with a double knock.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
31–36 cm. The upperparts are black and the head carries a pointed red crest. A narrow white line runs from the bill base along the side of the neck to the shoulder; two white stripes on the scapulars run parallel and do not meet on the back. The throat is streaked, the underparts pale buff to white with dense black barring. The male has a red forehead and red moustache; in the female the forehead and moustache are black. The bill is pale horn. In flight the white underwings stand out.
Confusion species
Pale-billed Woodpecker Campephilus guatemalensis is the same size but has an all-red head without a white facial stripe, a pale, ivory-coloured bill and white scapular stripes that meet on the back in a V. Crimson-crested Woodpecker Campephilus melanoleucos (Panama) also has a V on the back; the male has an almost entirely red head with a small white and black cheek spot, the female a broad white stripe from the bill base across the cheek.
Habitat
Forest edges, open woodland, secondary forest, gallery forest, dry forest, plantations with shade trees, pastures and farmland with scattered large trees, and the edges of mangrove and swamp forest, mainly in the lowlands and foothills up to about 1500 m. It eats ants, beetle larvae and other insects dug from trunks and branches, as well as fruit and seeds. It excavates a nest hole in a dead tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Throughout the guide area: in Mexico on the Pacific slope from southern Sonora and on the Gulf slope from Tamaulipas southwards, including the Yucatán Peninsula, and on through every country of Central America to Panama, on both slopes. Outside the guide area over much of South America east of the Andes, to northern Argentina, and in Trinidad.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
To be expected almost anywhere in lowlands with large trees, including along roads through pasture country. The ringing call and loud drumming give the bird away. With any large black woodpecker with a red head, checking the scapular stripes, bill colour and face separates it from Pale-billed Woodpecker.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species has a large range and tolerates semi-open, man-modified landscapes with large trees.
Scientific name
Dryocopus lineatus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Picus lineatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dryocopus was introduced in 1826 by Boie. Dryocopus goes back to Greek druokopos 'woodpecker', from druos 'tree' and kopos 'beating'. lineatus is Latin for 'lined', after the white stripe along the neck and back. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.