Chloropicus

Chloropicus is a genus of birds in the woodpecker family Picidae that are native to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Chloropicus
Bearded woodpecker Chloropicus namaquus
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Piciformes
Family:	Picidae
Tribe:	Melanerpini
Genus:	Chloropicus Malherbe, 1845
Type species
Picus (Chloropicus) pyrrhogaster[1] Malherbe, 1845
Species
3, see text

Taxonomy

The genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Alfred Malherbe in 1845 with the fire-bellied woodpecker (Chloropicus pyrrhogaster) as the type species.^[2] The word Chloropicus is from the Greek khlōros meaning green and pikos meaning woodpecker.^[3] Molecular genetic studies have shown that the genus Chloropicus is sister to the genus Dendropicos.^[4][5] Species in this genus were previously sometimes assigned to Dendropicos.^[6][7]

The genus contains the three species:^[7]

Image	Scientific name	Common Name	Distribution
	Chloropicus namaquus	Bearded woodpecker	Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
	Chloropicus xantholophus	Yellow-crested woodpecker	Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
	Chloropicus pyrrhogaster	Fire-bellied woodpecker	Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo and western Cameroon