Woodpecker

Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specializes in exploiting cacti. Members of this family are chiefly known for the characteristic behaviour that lent them their common name. Their pecking serves mostly to aid their forage for insect prey in the trunks and branches of trees, and also communication which they achieve by drumming trees with their beaks, producing a reverberatory sound that can be heard at some distance. Some species vary their diet with fruits, birds' eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion. They usually nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds. They sometimes come into conflict with humans when they make holes in buildings or feed on fruit crops, but perform a useful service by their removal of insect pests on trees. The Picidae are one of nine living families in the order Piciformes, the others being barbets (comprising three families), toucans, toucan-barbets, and honeyguides, which (along with woodpeckers) comprise the clade Pici, and the jacamars and puffbirds in the clade Galbuli. DNA sequencing has confirmed the sister relationships of these two groups. The family Picidae includes about 240 species arranged in 35 genera. Almost 20 species are threatened with extinction due to loss of habitat or habitat fragmentation. One species, the Bermuda flicker, is believed to have gone extinct in the 17th century, while two others (the ivory-billed woodpecker and the imperial woodpecker) are generally considered to be extinct, though that status is not universally accepted; the IUCN lists both as critically endangered as of April 2026.