Great Slaty Woodpecker

Great Slaty Woodpecker
Great Slaty Woodpecker
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Family: Picidae
Genus: Mulleripicus
Species: M. pulverulentus
Binomial name
Mulleripicus pulverulentus
(Temminck, 1826)

The Great Slaty Woodpecker (Mulleripicus pulverulentus) is a species of bird in the Picidae family. It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests. With the probable extinction of the Imperial Woodpecker and possible extinction of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, this species, at 48–58 cm (19–23 in) long and a weight of 360–563 g (13–19.9 oz), stands as the largest woodpecker in the world.[1]

Great Slaty Woodpeckers are mostly seen in groups of 3-6 individuals. Groups often forage on shared feeding sites in the form of nests of social insects as ants, termites and stingless bees. Females spend more time searching for feeding sources and males, that have slightly larger bills, spend more time opening the sources. Preferred feeding sources are mostly found in large branches or trunks of large, living trees. Few nests of the species have been described in detail, but at least occasionally nests are raised cooperatively by groups. Known nests were located in very large trees. Probably because of their feeding and breeding dependence on large old trees, Great Slaty Woodpeckers are most common in primary forests and show density reductions of over 80% in logged forests. The global population is in decline because of the loss of forest cover and logging of old-growth forest throughout its range, with habitat loss being particularly rapid in Myanmar, Cambodia and Indonesia which are the countries that still hold the majority of the global population. In 2010 the Great Slaty Woodpecker was included in the IUCN Red List in the Vulnerable category.


References

  1. ^ CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (1992), ISBN 978-0849342585.
  • BirdLife International 2011. Species factsheet: Great Slaty Woodpecker [1] Downloaded on 1 November 2011.
  • Lammertink, M. 2004. Grouping and cooperative breeding in the Great Slaty Woodpecker. Condor 106: 309-319.


External links