science

Piciformes

Piciformes is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Piciformes rather than just read about it. In short: Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes (), the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of which the Picidae make up about half.

Key takeaways

Piciformes belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Piciformes to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Piciformes from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes (), the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of which the Picidae make up about half. In general, the Piciformes are insectivorous, although the barbets and toucans mostly eat fruit and the honeyguides are unique among birds in being able to digest beeswax (although insects make up the bulk of their diet). Nearly all Piciformes have parrot-like zygodactyl feet—two toes forward and two back, an arrangement that has obvious advantages for birds that spend much of their time on tree trunks. An exception are a few species of three-toed woodpeckers. The jacamars aside, Piciformes do not have down feathers at any age, only true feathers. They range in size from the rufous piculet at 8 centimetres in length, and weighing 7 grams, to the toco toucan, at 63 centimetres long, and weighing 680 grams. All nest in cavities and have altricial young.

Taxonomy The Galbulidae and Bucconidae are often separated into a distinct Galbuliformes order. Analysis of nuclear genes confirms that they form a lineage of their own, but suggests that they are better treated as a suborder. The other families form another monophyletic group of suborder rank, but the barbets were determined to be paraphyletic with regard to the toucans and hence, the formerly all-encompassing Capitonidae have been split up. The woodpeckers and honeyguides are each other's closest relatives. According to some researchers, the entire order Piciformes should be included as a subgroup in Coraciiformes. The phylogenetic relationship between the nine families that make up the order Piciformes is shown in the cladogram below. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC).

Evolution

Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of the Piciformes has been hampered by poor understanding of the evolution of the zygodactyl foot. A number of prehistoric families and genera, from the Early Eocene Neanis and Hassiavis, the Zygodactylidae/Primoscenidae, Gracilitarsidae, Sylphornithidae, and "Homalopus", to the Miocene "Picus" gaudryi and the Pliocene Bathoceleus are sometimes tentatively assigned to this order. There are some extinct ancestral Piciformes known from fossils which have been difficult to place but at least in part probably belong to the Pici. The modern families are known to exist since the mid-late Oligocene to early Miocene; consequently, the older forms appear to be more basal. A large part of Piciform evolution seems to have occurred in Europe where only Picidae occur today; perhaps even some now exclusively Neotropical families have their origin in the Old World.

Classification Order: PICIFORMES

Unassigned (all fossil) Piciformes gen. et sp. indet. IRScNB Av 65 (Early Oligocene of Boutersem, Belgium) Piciformes gen. et sp. indet. SMF Av 429 (Late Oligocene of Herrlingen, Germany) Suborder Galbuli Family Galbulidae – jacamars (18 species) Family Bucconidae – puffbirds, nunbirds and nunlets (some 38 species) Suborder Pici Unresolved and basal taxa (all fossil) Genus Rupelramphastoides (Early Oligocene of Frauenweiler, Germany) Pici gen. et sp. indet. (Middle Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban, France) Family Miopiconidae (fossil) Family Picavidae (fossil) Infraorder Ramphastides Family Megalaimidae – Asian barbets (about 35 species) Family Lybiidae – African barbets (about 43 species) Family Capitonidae – New World barbets (about 15 species) Family Semnornithidae – toucan barbets (2 species) Family Ramphastidae – toucans (about 43 species) Infraorder Picides Family Indicatoridae – honeyguides (16 species) Family Picidae – woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks (around 240 species)

See also List of Piciformes by population

References

Further reading Gorman, Gerard (2004): Woodpeckers of Europe: A Study of the European Picidae. Bruce Coleman, UK. ISBN 1-872842-05-4.

External links

Tree of Life Piciformes

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Piciformes

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Piciformes claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Piciformes before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Piciformes ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Piciformes

In research: Piciformes appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Piciformes in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Piciformes is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bird orders, Eocene taxonomic orders, Extant Eocene first appearances, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Piciformes outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Piciformes” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Piciformes in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Piciformes means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Piciformes out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Piciformes in simple terms?

Why does Piciformes matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Piciformes?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Piciformes.