Waved Woodpecker

About the Waved Woodpecker

The waved woodpecker (Celeus undatus) or variable woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

The English naturalist George Edwards described and illustrated the waved woodpecker in his Gleanings of Natural History which he published in 1764. Edwards used the English name "Red-cheeked Wood-pecker". When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he included the waved woodpecker, coined the binomial name Picus undatus, and cited Edwards's book. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Surinam [sic]. The waved woodpecker is now placed in the genus Celeus that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1831.

The waved woodpecker has a complicated taxonomic history. For much of the past it was assigned three subspecies. A 2011 publication suggested that the four subspecies of the scaly-breasted woodpecker (then C. grammicus) properly belonged as subspecies of the waved woodpecker, and a 2018 publication provided further evidence. In 2019 BirdLife... Wikipedia →