"Speckle-chested piculet The speckle-chested piculet (""Picumnus steindachneri"") is a species of bird in the family Picidae (woodpeckers) endemic to Peru. Its natural habitats are tropical moist lowland and montane forests. It is threatened by habitat destruction as the forests are cleared to make way for agricultural land, and the IUCN has rated it as being an endangered species. This is a small species growing to a length of . It is mainly grey, black and white, the upper parts being greyish-brown speckled and barred with white or buff, the throat being whitish and the breast being black with white tear-drop"
"Piculet The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with just three Asian and one African species. Like the true woodpeckers, piculets have large heads, long tongues which they use to extract their insect prey and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backwards. However, they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk. Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than the true woodpeckers, so"
"or more descending notes. Picumnus (bird) Picumnus is a large genus of piculets. With a total length of 8–10 cm (3–4 in), they are among the smallest birds in the woodpecker family. Species limits in this genus are doubtful, and the rate of interbreeding is ""inordinately high"" (Remsen et al. 2007). As defined by Winkler and Christie (2002), it contains the 27 species listed below, all from the Neotropics except the speckled piculet, which is Asian (and sometimes placed in a monotypic genus, ""Vivia""). Their upperparts are brownish, greyish or olive, in some species with darker barring or white or"
"Picumnus (bird) Picumnus is a large genus of piculets. With a total length of 8–10 cm (3–4 in), they are among the smallest birds in the woodpecker family. Species limits in this genus are doubtful, and the rate of interbreeding is ""inordinately high"" (Remsen et al. 2007). As defined by Winkler and Christie (2002), it contains the 27 species listed below, all from the Neotropics except the speckled piculet, which is Asian (and sometimes placed in a monotypic genus, ""Vivia""). Their upperparts are brownish, greyish or olive, in some species with darker barring or white or yellowish spotting on the"
"and heavily degraded former forest. The white-barred piculet was first described in 1825 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. It was given the name ""Picumnus cirratus"", the specific name meaning ""curly headed"", ""cirrus"" being Latin for a ringlet or curl. Molecular studies show that it is the sister species to ""P. temminckii"" and also closely related to ""P. dorbignyanus"", and at different times these species have been treated as synonymous. Six subspecies are recognised; ""P. c. confusus"" found in southwestern Guyana, northern Brazil and French Guiana; the Marajo piculet, ""P. c. macconnelli"" found in the eastern Amazon region of"
"piculet is native to tropical southeastern Asia. Its range extends from northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh through southern China to Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. Its home is dense wet or dry forest with plenty of vines and bamboo, scrub and swampy woodlands. It is found at altitudes of up to . It forages in the understory layer not far above the ground, pecking and probing with its sharp beak. Its diet consists of small insects, bark beetles, ants, termites, spiders and other small invertebrates. It often forages in pairs or may join small flocks of mixed species, sometimes"
"slightly barred. The iris of the eye is black or brown, the beak is blackish and the legs and feet are grey. There is a grey orbital ring around the eye. Juveniles resemble females but are rather darker, with fine barring on the mantle and underparts. The ocellated piculet is native to South America. It is found in the foothills on the eastern side of the Andes, its range extending from Peru and Bolivia to northern Argentina, at altitudes between . Its habitat is primary rainforest and secondary moist forest, where it frequents bushy undergrowth, with vines, creepers and epiphytes."
"with several other species of piculet where their ranges overlap; these include the varzea (""P. varzeae"") along the Amazon River, the ochre-collared (""P. temminckii"") in southeastern Brazil, the ocellated (""P. dorbignyanus"") in Bolivia, and the white-wedged piculet (""P. albosquamatus""), also in Bolivia. The white-barred piculet is between long. The sexes differ in that the male has red streaks or a solid red patch on the fore-crown, while the female lacks this. The rest of the crown is black, speckled with white. The upper parts of the body are tan or olive-brown, faintly barred with white, and the main flight feathers"
"of pronounced morphological similarities, but the two ""Picumnus"" lineages, despite having diverged long ago, are virtually alike except for head coloration (Fuchs ""et al."", 2006). The Antillean piculet (""Nesoctites micromegas"") has proven to be a very distinct species evolutionarily between piculets and woodpeckers (Benz ""et al."", 2006) and thus is nowadays placed in a subfamily of its own. The arrangement of species in the genera follows del Hoyo ""et al."" (2002). Genus ""Picumnus"" Genus ""Verreauxia"" (sometimes included in ""Sasia"") Genus ""Sasia"" Piculet The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with"
"with white speckles. The upper parts of the body are chocolate-brown, sometimes with an olive tinge, and occasionally slightly barred with black. The tail is deep brown apart from the central pair of feathers, which are whitish, and the two outer pairs of feathers which have a whitish bar near the tip. The underparts are some shade of brown with light barring and streaking in darker brown and white. The iris is brown, the beak is black and the legs and feet are bluish-grey. The juvenile is similar to the female but the underparts are more heavily barred. This piculet"
"of bare skin around the eye. The legs and feet are yellowish or orange, and this piculet has just three toes on each foot, (four being normal in the woodpecker family). The juvenile is rather more grey. The rufous piculet is native to tropical southeastern Asia. Its range extends from southern Myanmar, through Thailand and the Malay Peninsula to the Greater Sunda Islands and Borneo. It is a resident and sedentary species, generally restricted to the lowlands and hills, but at altitudes of up to about in Borneo. Its typical habitat is dense humid secondary forests with tangled undergrowth, vines,"
"in 1585. The family Picidae has four subfamilies, the Picinae (woodpeckers), the Picumninae (piculets), the Jynginae (wrynecks) and the monotypic Nesoctitinae (Antillean piculet). Based on morphology and behaviour, the Picumninae was considered to be the sister clade of the Picinae. This has now been confirmed by phylogenetic analysis and the Jynginae are placed basal to the Picinae, Nesoctitinae and Picumninae. Jynginae includes one genus (""Jynx"") and two species, the Eurasian wryneck and the red-throated wryneck (""Jynx ruficollis""), resident in sub-Saharan Africa. There are six subspecies of ""Jynx torquilla"": The Eurasian wryneck grows to about in length. The subspecies ""Jynx torquilla"
"mantle. The underparts vary greatly among the species, ranging from all rich brown in the chestnut piculet, to whitish in the plain-breasted piculet, white with dark bars in the white-barred piculet, and pale yellowish with dark bars on the chest and dark spots and streaks on the belly in the bar-breasted piculet. They have black crowns with red, orange, or yellow marks in the male and white dots in the female, except that the male speckled piculet has brown crown marks and the female lacks white dots. Most have rather short black tails with white stripes down the edges and"
"they look for insects and grubs mainly in decaying wood. Similarly, they re-use woodpecker holes for nesting, rather than making their own holes. The eggs are white, as with many hole nesters. Typically these birds have grey or dull green upperparts and dark-streaked white underparts. Although not well known from fossils, the evolution of piculets is now considered rather straightforward. The disjunct occurrence of the genera, with one African species of the Southeast Asian ""Sasia"" and one Southeast Asian species of the American ""Picumnus"" is of comparatively recent origin. Molecular dating, calibrated with geographic events in the absence of a"
"of fruit compared to other piculets. Individuals and pairs forage rapidly through the understory of their habitat, mostly on small branches, twigs, vines and stalks, and less commonly on trunks. Food is mostly obtained by gleaning, with a few weak pecks (but no hammering as found in the true woodpeckers). The breeding season of the Antillean piculet is March to July. A cavity is excavated in a stump, tree, palm or fence post in which two to four eggs are laid. The pair are highly territorial and will aggressively call and display towards intruders. Antillean piculet The Antillean piculet (""Nesoctites"
"Ancient Greek ""poikilos"" ""colourful"". A related word ""poikilidos"" denoted an unidentified small bird. It has traditionally been treated as feminine (giving name endings such as ""cincta""); however, this was not specified by the original genus author Johann Jakob Kaup, and under the ICZN the genus name must therefore be treated by default as masculine, giving name endings such as ""cinctus"". The genus includes the following fifteen species: Poecile Poecile is a genus of birds in the tit family Paridae. It contains 15 species, which are scattered across North America, Europe and Asia; the North American species are the chickadees. In"
"Poecile Poecile is a genus of birds in the tit family Paridae. It contains 15 species, which are scattered across North America, Europe and Asia; the North American species are the chickadees. In the past, most authorities retained ""Poecile"" as a subgenus within the genus ""Parus"", but treatment as a distinct genus, initiated by the American Ornithologists Union, is now widely accepted. This is supported by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis. The genus ""Poecile"" was erected by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829. The type species was subsequently designated as the marsh tit. The name ""Poecile"" is from"
"mandible is red in males and black in females, while the lower mandible is black in both sexes. It is listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Very little is known about its ecology. Nicobar parakeet The Nicobar parakeet (""Psittacula caniceps""), also known as the Blyth's parakeet, is a parrot in the genus ""Psittacula"", endemic to the Nicobar Islands of the Indian Ocean. It is one of the largest parakeets, measuring 56 to 60 cm from the top of the head to the tip of the tail and weighing about 224 g. It is"
"Epicauta Epicauta is a genus of beetles in the blister beetle family, Meloidae. The genus was first scientifically described in 1834 by Pierre François Marie Auguste Dejean. ""Epicauta"" is distributed nearly worldwide, with species native to all continents except Australia. Surveys have found the genus to be particularly diverse in northern Arizona in the United States. Few species occur in the Arctic, with none farther north than the southern Northwest Territory of Canada. Adult beetles feed on plants. The larvae are predators on the eggs of grasshoppers. The beetles can significantly damage plants, and many ""Epicauta"" are known as agricultural"
"DNA sequence analyses have confirmed that Pici and Galbuli are sister groups. The family Picidae was introduced by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1820. The phylogeny has been updated according to new knowledge about convergence patterns and evolutionary history. Most notably, the relationship of the picine genera has been largely clarified, and it was determined that the Antillean piculet is a surviving offshoot of proto-woodpeckers. Genetic analysis supports the monophyly of Picidae, which seems to have originated in the Old World, but the geographic origins of the"
"Pinguicula Pinguicula, commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous plants that use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 12 are native to Europe, 9 to North America, and some to northern Asia. The largest number of species is in South and Central America. The name ""Pinguicula"" is derived from a term coined by Conrad Gesner, who in his 1561 work entitled ""Horti Germaniae"" commented on the glistening leaves: """"propter pinguia et tenera folia…"""" (Latin"
"markings. The flanks and the rest of the underparts are barred in black and white. The tail is blackish apart from the central two feathers and a bar near the tip which are white. The front of the crown in males is red while in females it is black. The speckle-chested piculet is endemic to Peru. It has a rather limited range, being only known from the central Huallaga Valley and certain parts of the Utcubamba Valley in the foothills of the eastern Andes in Peru. Its altitudinal range is between about . Its main habitat is primary moist lowland"
"a mostly cosmopolitan distribution, although they are absent from Australasia, Madagascar, and Antarctica. They are also absent from some of the world's oceanic islands, although many insular species are found on continental islands. The true woodpeckers, subfamily Picinae, are distributed across the entire range of the family. The Picumninae piculets have a pantropical distribution, with species in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Neotropics, with the greatest diversity being in South America. The second piculet subfamily, Nesoctitinae, has a single member, the Antillean piculet, which is restricted to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The wrynecks (Jynginae) are found exclusively in the"
"Pikelot Pikelot Island is one of the outer islands of the State of Yap, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is a low coral islet, with a wet, tropical climate. It is uninhabited. The island is known to have a rich ecosystem, with forest and scrub; and extensive fringing reefs. The islet is also home to a major seabird rookery, turtle nesting area and a few mangroves. The islet has no permanent inhabitants, but because of the beautiful wildlife, there are often temporary visitors from surrounding atolls such as Puluwat and Satawal on turtle hunting expeditions. The trip"
"ring ouzel. The genus name ""cinclus"" derives from the Greek word ""kinklos"" used to describe a small tail-wagging bird that lived near water. Dipper Dippers are members of the genus Cinclus in the bird family Cinclidae, named for their bobbing or dipping movements. They are unique among passerines for their ability to dive and swim underwater. Dippers are small, chunky, stout, short-tailed, short-winged, strong-legged birds. The different species are generally dark brown (sometimes nearly black), or brown and white in colour, apart from the rufous-throated dipper, which is brown with a reddish-brown throat patch. Sizes range from 14–22 cm in"
"Parakeet auklet The parakeet auklet (""Aethia psittacula"") is a small seabird of the North Pacific. Parakeet Auklets used to be placed on its own in the genus ""Cyclorrhynchus"" (Kaup, 1829) but recent morphological and genetic evidence suggest it should be placed in the genus ""Aethia"", making them closely related to crested auklets and least auklets. It is associated with the boreal waters of Alaska, Kamchatka and Siberia. It breeds on the cliffs, slopes and boulder fields of offshore islands, generally moving south during the winter. The parakeet auklet is a small (23 cm) auk with a short orange bill that"
"feathers are brown tipped with green, and the tail is black, the two central feathers having white inner webs and the outer feathers having a white bar near the tip. The beak is blackish and the legs grey. The call is a thin ""seep-seep"" and the song a rather longer suite of similar notes. The Orinoco piculet is endemic to eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil, and is likely to be present also in the adjacent part of southern Venezuela. Its habitat is open tropical humid rainforest, gallery forest, wooded savannah and clumps of trees and scrub at altitudes of up"
"Sipuncula The Sipuncula or Sipunculida (common names sipunculid worms or peanut worms) is a group containing 144–320 species (estimates vary) of bilaterally symmetrical, unsegmented marine worms. ""Sipuncula"" signifies ""little tube or siphon"". Traditionally considered a phylum, they might be a subgroup of phylum Annelida based on recent molecular work. The first species of this phylum was described in 1827 by the French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville who named it ""Sipunculus vulgaris"". A related species was later described as ""Golfingia macintoshii"" by E. Ray Lankester. The specimen was provided by a friend of his, Professor Mackintosh. The specimen was"
"are brown above, with pale edgings to the secondaries and tertiaries, and the tail is brown, the two central feathers being white, and there being a white patch on the outer edge near the tip. The throat, breast and belly are white with black scaling, the flanks and lower belly being less scaled than elsewhere. The iris is brown, the beak blackish and the legs grey. The juvenile is similar to the female but has a paler crown. The native range of the white-wedged piculet in tropical South America includes parts of Bolivia, southern Brazil and northern Paraguay; it is"
"forests, as well as semi-arid scrubland and thorn-forest. It will also occupy stands of mangrove forest and occasionally orchards and plantations. It occurs from sea-level to 1800 m, although in pine forests it is more common below 300 m. Within this habitat it prefers dense undergrowth. The species is a small woodpecker, although it is twice as large as any of the other piculets, measuring around 14–16 cm and weighing around 30 g. The male has a yellow crown with a red spot in the centre. The plumage of the back, neck and wings is olive green, and the breast,"
"are chocolate. The tail is mostly black but the inner webs of the central two feathers are white, and the inner webs of the outer four feathers are whitish near the tip. The chin and throat are white with slight barring, and the underparts are white or cream heavily barred with black, especially on the lower belly. The iris is brown, the beak is black and slightly curved and the legs are grey. The ochre-collared piculet is native to South America, its range extending from southeastern Brazil and eastern Paraguay to northeastern Argentina. It is a resident and sedentary species"
"significant source of income for the local population of fishermen families. Sipuncula The Sipuncula or Sipunculida (common names sipunculid worms or peanut worms) is a group containing 144–320 species (estimates vary) of bilaterally symmetrical, unsegmented marine worms. ""Sipuncula"" signifies ""little tube or siphon"". Traditionally considered a phylum, they might be a subgroup of phylum Annelida based on recent molecular work. The first species of this phylum was described in 1827 by the French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville who named it ""Sipunculus vulgaris"". A related species was later described as ""Golfingia macintoshii"" by E. Ray Lankester. The specimen was"
"pupils, while in ""P. vermiculata"" the spots form vermiculations narrower than its pupils; also, the vermiculations radiate from a central point on the head in ""P. vermiculata"", while there is no such pattern in ""P. lineola"". True ""Peckoltia"" species are fairly rarely exported for the pet trade; species called ""Peckoltia"" may actually be ""Panaque"" or ""Hypancistrus"" species. ""Peckoltia"" species are popular aquarium fish as they are small and attractive. They are shy and will spend much of the day hiding. In 2013, aquarists reported breeding ""P. braueri"" in captivity for the first time. Peckoltia Peckoltia is a genus of small"