African piculet greyish-green or olive-green crown whereas the forehead in the female is the same colour as the crown. The rest of the upper parts are rather dark green tinged with yellow. The wings and tail are brownish-black. The throat and breast are darkish grey and the belly is a slightly paler grey. The beak is black, the eye red and the legs reddish. The juvenile is similar to the adult but has grey or buffy tones mixed into the general hue of the plumage. The habitat of the African piculet is mainly lowland secondary forest. It is an active bird often
Black-dotted piculet Sucre, a few have finely barred chests. Rare individuals with scaly throats and pale buffy (rather than yellow) underparts resemble the scaled piculet, which can be distinguished by its scaly lower underparts. The crown is black with narrow scarlet streaks on the forepart and conspicuous white dots on the rear part, or throughout in some females. The upperparts are light olive-brown, slightly yellowish, with dusky spots on the shoulders and back. The song is "2 to several extremely high, thin notes, each slightly lower than the preceding, "tseeet, tseeet, tsee," etc." Possibly it is also used as a contact call.