Antillean piculet Antillean piculet The Antillean piculet ("Nesoctites micromegas") is a species of bird in the woodpecker family Picidae. It is monotypic within the genus Nesoctites. The species is evolutionarily distinct from the other piculets and is afforded its own subfamily Nesoctitinae. It is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. A fossil feather in amber attributed to the genus has been found in the Dominican Republic, showing that the ancestors of the species have been isolated on Hispaniola for at least 25 mya. The Antillean piculet occupies a number of different habitats within Hispaniola, including humid and dry "Pinus" and broadleaf
Piculet of pronounced morphological similarities, but the two "Picumnus" lineages, despite having diverged long ago, are virtually alike except for head coloration (Fuchs "et al.", 2006). The Antillean piculet ("Nesoctites micromegas") has proven to be a very distinct species evolutionarily between piculets and woodpeckers (Benz "et al.", 2006) and thus is nowadays placed in a subfamily of its own. The arrangement of species in the genera follows del Hoyo "et al." (2002). Genus "Picumnus" Genus "Verreauxia" (sometimes included in "Sasia") Genus "Sasia" Piculet The piculets are a distinctive subfamily, Picumninae, of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with