BlackWoods🐦

Photo: Alastair Rae · CC BY-SA 2.0

SpeciesPiciformesPicidae
Birds

🐦Black Woodpecker

Dryocopus martius (Linnaeus, 1758)

The black woodpecker is a large woodpecker that lives in mature forests across the northern Palearctic. It is the sole representative of its genus in that region, and its range is expanding. The black woodpecker is easily the largest woodpecker species in Europe as well as in the portion of Asia where it lives and is one of the largest species worldwide. This non-migratory species tends to make its home in old-growth forest or large forest stands and excavates a large tree hole to reside in. In turn, several species rely on black woodpeckers to secondarily reside in the holes made in trees by them. This woodpecker's diet consists mostly of carpenter ants. This species is closely related to, and fills the same ecological niche in Europe as, the pileated woodpecker of North America and the lineated woodpecker of South America, also being similar to the white-bellied woodpecker which is distributed to the south somewhat of the black woodpecker in Asia.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Photos
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Measurements
10
vs you
≈ 1/190th of your weight
Conservation status
LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2024.

Population trendDecreasing
Key measurements
Body mass
0.32 kg
Body length
not recorded
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
14 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Black Woodpecker

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
0.32 kg
AVONET
Other figures ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 0.32 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: acceptable
Tail length
0.18 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Wing length
0.24 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Beak length
0.07 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Tarsus length
0.04 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan
14 years
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Trophic level
Carnivore
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Habitat
Forest
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Lifestyle
Insessorial
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Volume l
0.3 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Black Woodpecker yet: body length, shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classAves
  4. ›orderPiciformes
  5. ›familyPicidae
  6. ›genusDryocopus
  7. ›speciesDryocopus martius
Full lineage
  1. orderSauria
  2. classBirds · Aves
  3. orderPiciformes
  4. familyPicidae
All 11 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. orderSauria
  9. classBirds · Aves
  10. orderPiciformes
  11. familyPicidae
More

More about the Black Woodpecker

Closest relative on this site
🐦 Great Spotted Woodpecker — last shared an ancestor ≈ 16 million years ago.
In other languages
Pic noir (fr), Zwarte specht (nl), dzięcioł czarny (pl), Dryocopus martius (es), fekete harkály (hu), spillkråka (sv) … and 26 more languages
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