Olive woodpecker facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Olive woodpecker
D. g. subsp. persimilis
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Piciformes
Family:	Picidae
Genus:	Dendropicos
Species:	D. griseocephalus
Binomial name
Dendropicos griseocephalus (Boddaert, 1783)
Geographic distribution shown in green
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Synonyms
Chloropicus griseocephalus

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The olive woodpecker (Dendropicos griseocephalus) is a cool bird that belongs to the woodpecker family, Picidae. These birds are known for pecking at trees!

Discovering the Olive Woodpecker

The olive woodpecker was first described in 1780 by a French scientist named Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. He wrote about it in his book, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird he studied came from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Naming the Species

In 1783, a Dutch scientist named Pieter Boddaert gave the olive woodpecker its scientific name. He called it Picus griseocephalus. Later, in 1849, a French bird expert named Alfred Malherbe placed it in a new group, or genus, called Dendropicos.

The name Dendropicos comes from old Greek words. Dendron means "tree" and pikos means "woodpecker". So, it literally means "tree woodpecker"! The second part of its name, griseocephalus, means "grey-headed". This is because griseus means "grey" and -kephalos means "-headed".

Different Types of Olive Woodpeckers

Scientists recognize three main types, or subspecies, of the olive woodpecker:

• D. g. ruwenzori (Sharpe, 1902) – You can find this type in Angola, northern Zambia, northern Malawi, and central Tanzania. It also lives in parts of the southeast DR Congo and southwest Uganda.
• D. g. kilimensis (Neumann, 1926) – This subspecies lives in northern and eastern Tanzania.
• D. g. griseocephalus (Boddaert, 1783) – This is the type found from southern Mozambique all the way to South Africa.

Where Olive Woodpeckers Live

The olive woodpecker lives in central, eastern, and southern Africa. Its home stretches from the Ruwenzori Mountains to the Western Cape in South Africa.

Countries They Call Home

These birds can be found in many African countries. This includes Angola, Burundi, the DRC, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Their Favorite Places to Live

Olive woodpeckers like to live in different kinds of forests and wooded areas. They can be found from 450 m (1,480 ft) up to 3,700 m (12,100 ft) high in the mountains.