Critically Endangered
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Campephilus principalis
The ivory-billed woodpecker is a woodpecker native to the Southern United States and Cuba.
Appearance
Standard measurements obtained include a wing chord length of 23.5–26.5 cm (9.3–10.4 in), a tail length of 14–17 cm (5.5–6.7 in), a bill length of 5.8–7.3 cm (2.3–2.9 in), and a tarsus length of 4–4.6 cm (1.6–1.8 in). The plumage of the ivory-billed woodpecker is predominated by a shiny deep black with blue or purple tint. There are white lines extending from the cheeks down the neck, meeting on the back.
The ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the largest woodpeckers in the world at roughly 51 centimetres (20 in. 1.67 ft) long and 76 centimetres (30 in; 2.49 ft) in wingspan.
Published measurements include mass about 13.
Range and habitat
No attempts were made to comprehensively estimate the range of the ivory-billed woodpecker until after its range had already been severely reduced by deforestation and hunting. The first range map produced for the species was made by Edwin M. The second range map was made by James Tanner in 1942.
Habitat labels include pine forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The ivory-billed woodpecker is thought to mate for life. Both parents work together to excavate a cavity in a tree approximately 15–70 feet (4.6–21.3 m) from the ground for the nest in that their young will be raised.
Nest cavities are typically in or just below broken-off stumps in living trees, where the wood is easier to excavate. No clear records indicate that ivory-bills reuse their nest cavities in subsequent years. Like most woodpeckers, they likely excavate a new nest each year.
In crisis
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. To hunt beetle larvae, the bird wedges bark from dead trees using its bill, exposing the larvae tunnels. Within its range, the ivory-bill faces no real competitor in hunting these larvae. In the 21st century, reported sightings and other evidence that the species persists in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida have been published, but the validity of these reports is disputed, with many sources arguing that it is likely extinct.
Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed that the species be declared extinct.
Ivory-billed Woodpecker is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Wikidata item Q756063. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
