Black-backed Woodpecker

SCI Name:  Picoides arcticus
Protonym:  Picus (Apternus) arcticus FaunaBor.-Am.[Swainson&Richardson] 2(1831) p.313
Taxonomy:  Piciformes / Picidae / Picoides
Taxonomy Code:  bkbwoo
Type Locality:  Near the sources of the Athabasca River, lat. 57° N., eastern slope of the Rockies.
Author:  Swainson
Publish Year:  1832
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

PICOIDES
(Picidae; Ϯ Three-toed Woodpecker P. tridactylus) Genus Picus Linnaeus, 1758, woodpecker; Gr. -οιδης -oidēs  resembling. The Three-toed Woodpecker was originally described by de Lacépède as being in an order (with Corvus, Coracias, Paradisea, Sitta, Buphaga) separate from the other woodpeckers in Order IV. “Comparative names.  ...  names, no less than the definitions of objects, should, where practicable, be drawn from positive and self-evident characters, and not from a comparison with other objects, which may be less known to the reader than the one before him ... The names Picoides ... Pseudoluscinia ... are examples of this objectionable practice” (Strickland Code 1842); "ORDRE XI.  ...  46. PICOÏDE, Picoïdes.  Langue très-longue, extensible, ronde et garnie à son extrémité de petites pointes recourbées en arrière; chaque pied ne présentant que trois doigts" (de Lacépède 1799); "Picoïdes Lacépède, Tabl. Ois., 1799, p. 7. Type, by subsequent designation, Picus tridactylus Gmelin i.e. Picus tridactylus Linné. (G. R. Gray, List Gen. Bds., 1840, p. 54.)" (Peters 1948, VI, 215).
Synon. Apternus, Dryocolaptes, Pipodes, Tridactylia, Yungipicus.

picoides
Specific name Oriolus picus J. Gmelin, 1788; Gr. -οιδης -oidēs  resembling; "PICOID GRAKLE.  Gracula Picoides.  G. rufa, capite collo pectoreque albo maculatis, cauda subrotundata, rectricibus apice aculeatis.  ...  Oriolus Picus.  O. rufus, capite collo et pectore albo maculatis, cauda rotundata.  Lin. Gmel.  Le Talapiot.  Buff. ois.  Pl. Enl. 605.  Climbing Oriole.  Lath. syn.   ...    Native of Guiana, where it resides on trees, climbing in the manner of a Creeper or Woodpecker.  The straitness of the bill however, as Mr. Latham observes, prevents it being properly ranked with the Creepers, and the feet, being not formed in the same manner as in the Woodpeckers, equally prohibit it from being arranged under the genus Picus." (Shaw 1809) (syn. Xiphorhynchus picus).

arcticus
L. arcticus  northern, arctic  < Gr. αρκτικος arktikos  northern  < αρκτος arktos  north.