ANOTHER SUPPOSEDLY EXTINCT WOODPECKER

Everyone has heard of the ivory-billed woodpecker, which featured in yesterday's bloggo. But far fewer people know of its close relative from south of the boarder. The imperial woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) was even bigger than the ivory billed at 23 inches long. It was he world’s biggest woodpecker. It was found only in the Sierra Madre and the Central Volcanic Belt in Mexico.

They were black white feathers on their wings with black crests. The male had red sides to his crest. The crests curled more than those of the ivory bill. The imperial woodpecker fed by ripping up the bark of dead pines to find burrowing insects and there lava. They like old growth montane forest made up of pines like the Durango, Mexican white, Montezuma and the wonderfully named loblolly pine. They would also feed from oaks.

The imperial woodpecker is believed to have become extinct in the 1950s due to deforestation of its home range as well as hunting both adult birds and chicks for food and quack medicines. Since the 1950s there have been only a handful of sightings. The last know individual was shot in 1959. The last sighting was in 2005.

Most of this bird’s original habitat has gone. Chances of its survival do not look good. But then again we thought that about the great ivory bill.