FAMILY PICIDAE 527 



which the mandible and the base of the maxilla are black, is found 

 from Colombia and Venezuela south through Ecuador to Peru.] 



Family PICIDAE : Woodpeckers ; Carpinteros 



Members of this family are widely distributed through the world, 

 absent in lands suitable for their needs only from the New Guinea 

 area, Australia, New Zealand, and Madagascar. 



Species of woodpeckers in general are heavy-bodied, with straight, 

 pointed bills, toes arranged in pairs with two pointed forward, two 

 back, and firmly feathered tails with the ends of the feathers stiff- 

 ened and pointed. They live clinging to the trunks and branches of 

 trees, where they climb up and down, and with chisel bills dig open the 

 tunnels in the wood where the larvae of wood-boring beetles live. 

 These insects are drawn out of their burrows by the stiffened, hard- 

 pointed, extensile tongue of the bird. Or insects such as ants, favored 

 by some species, are secured by a sticky secretion of the salivary glands 

 that covers the tongue. Numerous kinds vary such diet with berries 

 and fruits in season, or by flying insects captured on the wing. The 

 flickers of temperate regions in the Americas feed much on ants on 

 the ground. Other exceptions are the three-toed woodpeckers of 

 the Northern Hemisphere which lack the hallux in the hind toes, 

 and the wrynecks and piculets in which the ends of the tail are soft. 



Most woodpeckers dig holes that have round openings in tree 

 trunks and branches. These holes are used as sleeping quarters, and 

 as nests to rear their young. The pure white eggs are laid on a 

 few bits of wood chips with no other nesting material. 



All members of the family have a variety of call notes, many of 

 them rather abrupt and harsh. In addition they drum with the bill, 

 usually on resonant dead limbs, a tattoo that varies in delivery in 

 different species, or groups of species. The 20 kinds of woodpeckers 

 found in Panama range from small, sparrow size, through medium 

 to large and robust forms. One is a migrant that comes rather rarely 

 during the period of northern winter. 



KEY TO SPECIES OF PICIDAE 



1. Tail feathers with the tips rounded, soft and flexible ; size very small. 



Olivaceous piculet ; Picumnus olivaceus, p. 529 



Tail feathers with tips narrowed, elongated, stiff, and firm; size medium 



to very large 2 



2. Large ; crest red or partly red ; wing more than 170 mm 3 



Medium size; most species without crest (where crest is present it is 



brown or red) ; wing less than 150 mm 6 



