What are piculets?
Q: What are piculets?
A: Piculets are a subfamily of small woodpeckers mainly found in tropical South America, with a few species in Asia and Africa.
Q: What are the physical characteristics of piculets?
A: Piculets have large heads, long tongues, and zygodactyl feet with two toes pointing forward and two pointing backwards. However, they lack the stiff tail feathers that woodpeckers use when climbing trees.
Q: What is the diet of piculets?
A: Piculets mainly eat insects and grubs from decaying wood.
Q: Where do piculets nest?
A: Piculets re-use woodpecker holes for nesting, rather than making their own holes.
Q: What is the color of piculets' eggs?
A: The eggs of piculets are white, as with many hole nesters.
Q: How many species of piculets are there?
A: There are 30 species of piculets in total.
Q: When did piculets split off from mainstream woodpeckers?
A: Piculets split off from mainstream woodpeckers in the middle Miocene about 15 million years ago (mya). The splits between the three genera happened about 7.9 mya.
