Picchio pigmeo della Sonda

Identificazione

This is a small woodpecker with an overall length of around 13 cm (5.1 in). It has a greyish brown capped head, dark brown ear covers with two rather broad whitish grey bands narrowing towards neck. Upper parts greyish brown with white wings tipped with white thus appearing striped. Tail short and blackish with white bands. Lores and throat white leading into dirty white underparts. Upper breast streaked with brown reducing towards vent. Whitish underwing coverts with pale brown. Sexes dimorphic. Males have a reddish orange crown which is absent in females.

Tassonomia

The Sunda pygmy woodpecker was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other woodpeckers in the genus Picus and coined the binomial name Picus moluccensis. Gmelin based his description on "Le petit épeiche brun des Moluques" that had been described in 1780 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The locality was originally specified as the Maluku Islands. This was an error and has been corrected to the state of Malacca in Malaysia. The Sunda pygmy woodpecker is now one of seven species placed in the genus Yungipicus that was introduced in 1854 by Charles Lucien Bonaparte.<p>Two subspecies are recognised:

Nome scientifico

Yungipicus moluccensis

Autorità

(Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Ordine

Piciformi

Famiglia

Picidae

Genere

Yungipicus

Areale e habitat

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or tropical mangrove forest, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.

Migrazione

Resident species

Comportamento

A common visitor to urban areas and forests in Singapore. Often found singly or in pairs rapidly moving up trees. Found from ground right up into the topmost branches of trees on dead branches.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

rising