Ivory-billed Woodpecker

About the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

The ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) is a woodpecker native to the Southern United States and Cuba. Habitat destruction and hunting have reduced populations so severely that the last universally accepted sighting in the United States was in 1944, and the last universally accepted sighting in Cuba was in 1987. The ivory-bill was the largest woodpecker in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. Naturalist John James Audubon described it as the "Great chieftain of the woodpecker tribe". In adults, the bill is ivory in color, hence the species' common name, and the plumage is deep black and white, with a red crest in males. The bird was commonly found in bottomland hardwood forests, including dense swampland, and in temperate coniferous forests.

Source: Wikipedia

Classification

Scientific name

Campephilus principalis

Family

Woodpeckers

Order

Piciformes

Similar species

Other members of the woodpeckers family recorded in North America — a useful place to start if you are not certain of your identification.

• Acorn Woodpecker Melanerpes formicivorus
• American Three-toed Woodpecker Picoides dorsalis
• Arizona Woodpecker Leuconotopicus arizonae
• Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus
• Black-cheeked Woodpecker Melanerpes pucherani
• Chestnut-colored Woodpecker Celeus castaneus
• Downy Woodpecker Dryobates pubescens
• Eurasian Wryneck Jynx torquilla
• Gila Woodpecker Melanerpes uropygialis
• Gilded Flicker Colaptes chrysoides
• Golden-cheeked Woodpecker Melanerpes chrysogenys
• Golden-fronted Woodpecker Melanerpes aurifrons