The golden-olive woodpecker (Colaptes rubiginosus) is a species of bird in the subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found from Mexico south and east through Panama, in every mainland South American country except Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Taxonomy
The golden-olive woodpecker was formally described in 1820 as Picus rubiginosis by the English zoologist William Swainson. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "rusty". Swainson specified the type locality as the "Spanish Main". In 1918 the Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr restricted the location to Caracas, Venezuela. The golden-olive woodpecker is now one of 14 species placed in the genus Colaptes that was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors.
Nineteen subspecies are recognised: Its relationships are uncertain as it has not been included in a genetic study.
Further splittings of these subspecies have been proposed at various times but each is currently (2023) considered synonymous with a member of this list.
According to some authors, the golden-olive woodpecker sensu lato and the grey-crowned woodpecker (C. auricularis) form a superspecies. However, research since 2010 has found that the golden-olive C. rubiginosus is not monophyletic, with some subspecies being more closely related to the grey-crowned woodpecker and others to the black-necked woodpecker (C. atricollis) than they are to other golden-olive subspecies.
Breeding
The golden-olive woodpecker's breeding season has not been determined for its whole range, but it appears to vary geographically. It breeds between January and May from Mexico to Colombia, from December or January to June or July in Ecuador and Peru, and the season perhaps includes October in Guyana. It excavates its nest cavity in a living or dead tree or palm, anywhere between above the ground. Both sexes incubate the clutch of two to four eggs but the incubation period is not known. Both parents provision nestlings by regurgitation for the approximately 24 days between hatch and fledging.