Ivory-billed Woodpecker - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Ivory-billed is the type species for the genus Campephilus, a group of large American woodpeckers. Although the Ivory-billed looks very similar to the Pileated Woodpeckers they are not close relatives as the latter is a member of the genus Dryocopus.

Ornithologists have traditionally recognized two subspecies of this bird: the American Ivory-billed, the more famous of the two, and the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The two look similar despite differences in size and plumage. There is some controversy over whether the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker is more appropriately recognized as a separate species. A recent study compared DNA samples taken from specimens of both Ivory-billed birds along with the Imperial Woodpecker, a larger but otherwise very similar bird. It concluded not only that the Cuban and American Ivory-billed woodpeckers are genetically distinct, but also that they and the Imperial form a North American clade within Campephilus that appeared in the Mid-Pleistocene. The study does not attempt to define a lineage linking the three birds, though it does imply that the Cuban bird is more closely related to the Imperial.

The American Ornithologists' Union Committee on Classification and Nomenclature has said it is not yet ready to list the American and Cuban as separate species. Lovette, a member of the committee, said that more testing is needed to support that change, but concluded that "These results will likely initiate an interesting debate on how we should classify these birds." Before this study, it was thought that the Cuban Ivory-billed were descended from mainland woodpeckers, either introduced to Cuba by Native Americans or accidentals that flew to the island themselves.

While recent evidence suggesting that American Ivory-billed Woodpeckers may still exist in the wild has caused excitement in the Ornithology community, no similar evidence exists for the Cuban Ivory-billed bird, believed to be extinct since the last sighting in the late 1980s.