Colaptes

Flickers
Gilded flicker (Colaptes chrysoides), a typical flicker
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Piciformes
Family:	Picidae
Subfamily:	Picinae
Tribe:	Picini (disputed)
Genus:	Colaptes Vigors, 1825
Diversity
About one dozen species
Synonyms
Chrysoptilus Nesoceleus

Chrysoptilus
Nesoceleus

Colaptes is the genus of woodpeckers which contains the flickers. The scientific name means "the pecker", Latinized from the Greek verb kolápto (κολάπτω), "to peck".

One well-known member of this genus is the northern flicker (Colaptes auratus), a subspecies of which is known in parts of the southern U.S. as the "Yellowhammer". It is the state bird of Alabama, and the state's nickname is the "Yellowhammer State".

Colaptes woodpeckers typically have a brown or green back and wings with black barring, and a beige to yellowish underside, with black spotting or barring. There are usually colorful markings on the head. Many of these birds – particularly the northerly species – are more terrestrial than usual among woodpeckers.

The genus Colaptes belongs to the diverse tribe Picini, which is included in the Malarpicini by some authors. Regardless, their tribe contains mostly mid-sized and often rather terrestrial woodpeckers with typically greenish or brownish wings, but also some large and dark forms e.g. in the genus Dryocopus. The rather closely related genus Picus can be considered the Old World ecomorphological equivalent of Colaptes; it is the type genus of the tribe Picini (if valid), the true woodpecker subfamily (Picinae), the family of woodpeckers and relatives (Picidae), as well as the suborder (Pici) and entire order (Piciformes) of increasingly more distant woodpecker relatives up to and including the puffbirds (Galbulidae). Picus is not as closely related to the flickers as is the genus Piculus, however, which have a more conventional lifestyle and forage on the ground less often.

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Wikipedia