The straight-billed woodcreeper (Dendroplex picus) is a species of bird in the subfamily Dendrocolaptinae of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Panama, on Trindad, and in every mainland South American country except Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Taxonomy and systematics
The straight-billed woodcreeper was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the orioles in the genus Oriolus and coined the binomial name Oriolus picus. The specific epithet picus is the Latin word for a woodpecker. Gmelin based his description on "Le pic-grimpereaux" from Cayenne that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon. The straight-billed woodcreeper was later moved to genus Dendroplex that was introduced in 1827 by William Swainson. In the 1950s genus Dendroplex was merged into genus Xyphorhynchus but in the early 2000s it was resurrected for this species and Zimmer's woodcreeper (D. kienerii).
Thirteen subspecies of the straight-billed woodcreeper are recognized.
D. p. extimus Griscom, 1927
D. p. dugandi Wetmore & Phelps, WH, 1946
D. p. picirostris Lafresnaye, 1847
D. p. saturatior Hellmayr, 1925
D. p. choicus Wetmore & Phelps, WH, 1946
D. p. paraguanae (Phelps, WH & Phelps, WH Jr, 1962) D. p. longirostris Richmond, 1896 D. p. altirostris (Leotaud, 1866) D. p. phalarus Wetmore, 1939 D. p. deltanus (Phelps, WH & Phelps, WH Jr, 1952) D. p. picus (Gmelin, JF, 1788) D. p. duidae Zimmer, JT, 1934 D. p. peruvianus Zimmer, JT, 1934
The northernmost group of subspecies (D. p. extimus through D. p. deltanus) and the southern group (D. p. picus, D. p. duidae, and D. p. peruvianus) have been proposed by some authors as separate species. D. p. deltanus has also by itself been proposed for species status, and several other subspecies have been proposed as splits of existing ones. None of these proposals have been widely accepted.
Description
The straight-billed woodcreeper is long. Males weigh , mainland females , and a female from Trinidad weighed . It is a slim, medium-sized woodcreeper. Its bill is distinctive, with a straight culmen on the maxilla and a mandible that curves upward. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies D. p. picus have an indistinct pale supercilium and eyering, a dusky stripe behind the eye, and brown ear coverts with wide buffy white streaks. Their forehead is whitish. Their crown and nape are dark brown to blackish with buffy white streaks that are larger on the nape. Their upper back, scapulars, and lesser wing coverts are warm olive-brown to reddish brown; the rest of the wing coverts are more rufescent. Their upper back has a few thin pale streaks. Their lower back, rump, flight feathers, and tail are rufous-chestnut. Their flight feather have dusky tips and their inner tail feathers are darker than the others and the rump. Their chin and throat are buffy white with a dark brown to black scaly appearance that extends onto the upper breast. The rest of their underparts are brown with some olive on the belly. The scales on the upper breast become more linear on the lower breast, sides, and flanks but do not extend to the belly. Their undertail coverts have thin buffy-whitish streaks, and their underwing coverts are cinnamon-rufous. Their iris is reddish brown to dark brown. Their bill is light grayish horn or brownish to dull whitish; the base of the maxilla is dusky or blackish and the mandible is often paler than the maxilla. Their legs and feet are highly variable from green to gray and brownish. Juveniles are similar to adults but darker overall, with a deeper buff throat, smaller spots and streaks that are however more extensive and deeper buff on the underparts, and a shorter and darker bill.
The other subspecies of the straight-billed woodcreeper differ from the nominate and each other thus: