Melanerpes carolinus

The red-bellied woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker of the family Picidae. It breeds mainly in the eastern United States, ranging as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada. Though it has a vivid orange-red crown and nape it is not to be confused with the red-headed woodpecker, a separate species of woodpecker in the same genus with an entirely red head and neck that sports a solid black back and white belly. The red-bellied earns its name from the pale reddish tint on its lower underside.

Melanerpes carolinus

Ken Thomas · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
red-bellied woodpeckerPBDB
Sits inside
MelanerpesPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Picidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Picidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Picidae
Mass
63.6 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 6 of 6 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

6 occurrences of Melanerpes carolinus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Wicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°W

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The named rock units Melanerpes carolinus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Melanerpes carolinus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Melanerpes carolinus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

380 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Melanerpes carolinus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

6 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Melanerpes carolinus

Credit
Ken Thomas
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Melanerpes carolinus · FMNH:Birds:477746

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMelanerpes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)