Chloropicus pyrrhogaster
The Fire-bellied Woodpecker, *Chloropicus pyrrhogaster*, is a striking resident of West African rainforests, immediately recognizable by its eponymous crimson belly patch against a pale, heavily streaked underside. Males display a vivid crimson-red forehead, crown, and nape, contrasting with the olive-green upperparts and dark malar stripe. Females, while sharing the vibrant belly, possess a blackish-brown crown and nape, often with only a small red patch on the nape, showcasing clear sexual ...
Found primarily in lowland tropical rainforests, forest edges, and secondary growth, it also adapts to cocoa plantations and cultivated areas with remnant trees, generally at elevations below 1,200 meters.
Its diet consists predominantly of insects, including beetle larvae, ants, termites, and caterpillars, which it extracts from bark and wood, supplemented occasionally with small fruits.
Diurnal in activity, the Fire-bellied Woodpecker spends its days actively foraging, often in pairs, within the canopy and sub-canopy of tall trees. Its primary foraging strategy involves gleaning and probing bark crevices for insects, but it also uses typical woodpecker drilling and pecking techn...
The Fire-bellied Woodpecker is a non-migratory resident species found exclusively in West Africa. Its distribution spans from Sierra Leone eastward through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Ghana, occasionally extending into southwestern Togo and Benin. This species is primarily restricted to the Upper...
Least Concern
- The Fire-bellied Woodpecker's scientific name, *pyrrhogaster*, directly translates from Greek as 'fire-bellied', aptly describing its most distinctive feature. - It was formerly classified in the genus *Dendropicos*, reflecting a recent taxonomic revision based on molecular studies. - Despite i...