woodpecker, common name for members of the Picidae, a large family of climbing birds found in most parts of the world. Woodpeckers typically have sharp, chisellike bills for pecking holes in tree trunks, and long, barbed, extensible tongues with which they impale their insect prey. Their spiny tail feathers act as a prop in climbing, resting, and drilling. Usually the male has a red or orange patch on its head and barred and spotted black or brown plumage with light underparts. Among the North American woodpeckers are the sociable downy woodpecker, Picus pubescens (about 61/2 in./17 cm long); the similar but larger hairy woodpecker, P. villosus, the red-crested pileated woodpecker, or logcock, Hylotomus pileatus (about 17 in./44.3 cm long), which is similar to the possibly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker; the redheaded and three-toed woodpeckers, genus Picoides; and the California woodpecker, genus Colaptes, which makes small holes in trees for storing acorns. The flickers, genus Melanerpes, the only brown-backed woodpeckers, sometimes capture insects on the ground. The yellow-shafted flicker is known by many local names (e.g., high hole and yellowhammer) and interbreeds with the red-shafted flicker. The sapsuckers (e.g., the red-breasted and yellow-bellied sapsuckers) may damage or kill trees by girdling them with small holes through which they eat some of the cambium and drink sap; they also feed on ants and wild fruit. The piculets are tiny (3-5 in./7.6-12.7 cm long) Old and New World woodpeckers. The woodpecker family also includes the Old World wryneck, which does not peck wood. Woodpeckers are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Piciformes, family Picidae.

ivory-billed woodpecker, common name for the largest of the North American woodpeckers, Campephilus principalis. Once plentiful in Southern hardwood forests, it was believed to be extinct or nearing extinction after 1952. The last known members of this species had been reported from the deepest forests of NW Florida and central Louisiana, and there were no confirmed sightings after 1944 until 2004, when one may have been spotted in an E Arkansas swamp. The Arkansas evidence, however, has been criticized by a number of ornithologists as ambiguous.

A shiny blue-black in color with extensive white markings on its wings and neck, this bird is distinguished by its pure white bill and by a prominent top crest, red in the male and black in the female. A true woodpecker, it has a strong and straight chisellike bill and a long, mobile, hard-tipped, sticky tongue. It measures from 18 to 20 in. (46-51 cm) in length, with short legs and feet ending in large, curved claws. The ivory-bill deposits from three to five glossy white eggs per clutch in an unlined hole, preferably drilled in a cypress tree. Of its reproductive habits little more than this is known.

The decrease in the number of ivory-bills may be largely blamed on the cutting and eventual disappearance of the trees in which they lived. It is not known how many ivory-bills may survive today in the forests of the S United States and in Cuba. Ivory-billed woodpeckers are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Piciformes, family Picidae.

Any of about 180 species (family Picidae) of mostly nonmigratory, solitary birds found nearly worldwide. Woodpeckers spiral up tree trunks, probing for insects, and chisel nest holes in dead wood by means of rapidly repeating blows of the beak. Though they spend their entire life in trees, only the few ground-feeding species can perch. Some species eat fruits and berries or tree sap. Woodpeckers are usually silent, except in spring, when males call loudly and drum on hollow wood. Species range from 6 to 18 in. (15 to 46 cm) long. All have a straight, chisel-like bill, and most are patterned in black, white, or yellow and bright colours. Seealso flicker; ivory-billed woodpecker; sapsucker.

Learn more about woodpecker with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Black-and-white woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) with a flaring crest (red on the male) and a long whitish bill. The largest North American woodpecker, it was thought to be extinct, though there were unconfirmed sightings of the bird in the southern United States in the late 1990s; a small population on Cuba was last seen in the late 1980s. In 2005, however, researchers announced that it had been sighted in eastern Arkansas. The species' decline coincided with the logging of virgin forest, where it subsisted on deadwood insects. A subspecies, the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker, is also believed to be extinct. A related species, the imperial woodpecker of Mexico, is critically endangered. All these birds appear to have required large trees and isolation from disturbance.

Learn more about ivory-billed woodpecker with a free trial on Britannica.com.