Kingdom Animalia Subfamily Picinae Phylum Chordata Rank Genus | Family Picidae Scientific name Dendropicos Higher classification Picinae Order Piciformes | |
 | ||
Lower classifications Cardinal woodpecker, Abyssinian woodpecker, Little grey woodpecker, Speckle‑breasted woodpecker, Stierling's woodpecker | ||
Grey woodpecker dendropicos goertae mauritania
Dendropicos is a genus of woodpeckers in the family Picidae that are native to Africa.
The genus Dendropicos formerly contained several additional species. A 2015 molecular phylogenetic study that analysed nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that Dendropicos was polyphyletic. In the rearranged genera the bearded, fire-bellied and yellow breasted woodpeckers were moved to Chloropicus while the Arabian woodpecker was moved to Dendrocoptes. The taxonomic committee of the British Ornithologists' Union have recommended an alternative arrangement of species in which the genera Dendrocoptes and Leiopicus are combined into a larger Dendropicos.
The name of the genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Alfred Malherbe in 1849. The word Dendropicos is from the Greek dendron meaning tree and pikos for woodpecker.
The genus contains the following 12 species:
