Wikipedia
Dendropicos is a genus of woodpeckers in the Picidae family that are native to Africa.
The genus Dendropicos formerly contained several additional species. A 2015 molecular phylogenetic study that analysed nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that Dendropicos was polyphyletic. In the rearranged genera the bearded, fire-bellied and yellow breasted woodpeckers were moved to Chloropicus while the Arabian woodpecker was moved to Dendrocoptes. The taxonomic committee of the British Ornithologists' Union have recommended an alternative arrangement of species in which the genera Dendrocoptes and Leiopicus are combined into a larger Dendropicos.
The name of the genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Alfred Malherbe in 1849. The word Dendropicos is from the Greek dendron meaning tree and pikos for woodpecker.
The genus contains the following 12 species:
- Little grey woodpecker (Dendropicos elachus)
- Speckle-breasted woodpecker (Dendropicos poecilolaemus)
- Abyssinian woodpecker (Dendropicos abyssinicus)
- Cardinal woodpecker (Dendropicos fuscescens)
- Gabon woodpecker (Dendropicos gabonensis)
- Melancholy woodpecker (Dendropicos lugubris)
- Stierling's woodpecker (Dendropicos stierlingi)
- Elliot's woodpecker (Dendropicos elliotii)
- African grey woodpecker (Dendropicos goertae)
- Eastern grey woodpecker (Dendropicos spodocephalus)
- Olive woodpecker (Dendropicos griseocephalus)
- Brown-backed woodpecker (Dendropicos obsoletus)