Rufous Woodpecker
Photo: Prajwalkm · CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodpeckers

Rufous Woodpecker

Micropternus brachyurus

LCLeast Concern
Family
Woodpeckers (Picidae)
Order
Piciformes

Overview

The rufous woodpecker (Micropternus brachyurus) is a medium-sized brown woodpecker native to South and Southeast Asia. It is short-billed, foraging in pairs on small insects, particularly ants and termites, in scrub, evergreen, and deciduous forests and is noted for building its nest within the carton nests of arboreal ants in the genus Crematogaster. It was for sometime placed in the otherwise Neotropical genus Celeus but this has been shown to be a case of evolutionary convergence and molecular phylogenetic studies support its placement in the monotypic genus Micropternus.

Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Range and habitat

Sources and further reading

Last updated September 29, 2026.