What is "picoides"

Picoides is a genus of woodpeckers ( family Picidae) that are native to Eurasia and North America.

The genus Picoides formerly contained around 12 species. In 2015 a molecular phylogenetic analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers (the tribe Dendropicini) found that three existing genera (Picoides, Veniliornis and Dendropicos) were polyphyletic. After the creation of six new monophyletic genera and the subsequent rearrangement in which most of the former members of Picoides were moved to Leuconotopicus and Dryobates, only three of the original species remained.

The name of the genus was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799. The word Picoides combined the Latin Picus for a woodpecker and the Greek -oidēs meaning resembling.

The genus contains the following three species:

• Eurasian three-toed woodpecker, Picoides tridactylus
  • Dark-bodied woodpecker, Picoides tridactylus funebris
• American three-toed woodpecker, Picoides dorsalis
• Black-backed woodpecker, Picoides arcticus