Woodpecker Families

This group gathers taxon/Bird Families subcategory members that are themselves bird families belonging to the order Piciformes, woodpeckers and their relatives, a group centered on the ability to drum, peck and excavate wood using a chisel-shaped bill and an unusually shock-absorbing skull structure that protects the brain from the repeated, forceful impacts involved. It spans the true woodpeckers, which excavate nest cavities and forage for wood-boring insects by drilling directly into bark and dead wood, and relatives such as the toucans, recognizable for an enormous, brightly colored but surprisingly lightweight bill, and the barbets and honeyguides, smaller, often colorful fruit- and insect-eating families found across the tropics. Nearly every family gathered here shares strong, sharp-clawed feet and stiffened tail feathers used together to brace the body firmly against a vertical trunk while feeding or excavating.