Elliot's Woodpecker (Dendropicos elliotii) - BirdLife species factsheet

Elliot's Woodpecker Dendropicos elliotii

Current view: Data table and detailed info

Taxonomy

Taxonomic note
Dendropicos elliotii and D. johnstoni (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) were previously placed in the genus Mesopicos and lumped as M. elliotii following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993).

Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

IUCN Red List criteria met and history

Red List criteria met

Critically Endangered	Endangered	Vulnerable
-	-	-

Red List history

Year	Category	Criteria
2024	Least Concern
2016	Least Concern
2014	Least Concern
2012	Not Recognised
2008	Not Recognised
2004	Not Recognised
2000	Not Recognised
1994	Not Recognised
1988	Not Recognised

Species attributes

Migratory status	not a migrant	Forest dependency	high
Land-mass type		Average mass	37 g

Range

	Estimate	Data quality
Extent of Occurrence (breeding/resident)	3,350,000 km²	medium
Severely fragmented?	no	-

Population

	Estimate	Data quality	Derivation	Year of estimate
Population size	unknown	-	-	-
Population trend	decreasing	-	suspected	-
Generation length	3.52 years	-	-	-

Population justification: The global population size has not been quantified, but the species is reported to be generally uncommon (del Hoyo et al. 2002). This species is considered to have a high dependency on forest habitat, and tree cover is estimated to have declined by 7.2% within its mapped range over the past 10 years (Global Forest Watch 2022, using Hansen et al. [2013] data and methods disclosed therein). It is therefore tentatively suspected that this rate of cover loss may have led to a decline of between 1-19% in the species' population size over the same time frame, with a best estimate of reduction being 5-9%.

Trend justification: .

Country/territory distribution

Country/Territory	Presence	Origin	Resident
Angola	extant	native	yes
Burundi	extant	native	yes
Cameroon	extant	native	yes
Central African Republic	extant	native	yes
Congo	extant	native	yes
Congo, The Democratic Republic of the	extant	native	yes
Equatorial Guinea	extant	native	yes
Gabon	extant	native	yes
Rwanda	extant	native	yes
Uganda	extant	native	yes

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)

Country/Territory	IBA Name

Habitats & altitude

Habitat (level 1)	Habitat (level 2)	Importance	Occurrence
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland	major	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Montane	major	resident
Altitude	0 - 2320 m	Occasional altitudinal limits

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Elliot's Woodpecker Dendropicos elliotii. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/elliots-woodpecker-dendropicos-elliotii on 22/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 22/11/2024.