European green woodpecker though the latter is smaller and more slender with narrower wings and longer tail. The closely related, very similar Levaillant's woodpecker occurs only in north-west Africa. The European green woodpecker is a member of the order Piciformes, the woodpecker family Picidae and the genus Picus. It was first described by Linnaeus in 1758. The scientific name is derived from the Greek "pikos", meaning 'woodpecker', and Latin "viridis", 'green'. There are four subspecies, with subtle and mostly clinal differences between them. In a recent study based on mitochondrial DNA analysis of subspecies by Perktaş, Barrowclough and Groth, it has been proposed
Little green woodpecker its crown and nape. The juvenile bird has greener upperparts with pale streaks, and its underparts are paler. The little green woodpecker is found in West Africa, in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Its range would extend east to South Sudan, Uganda, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo if "C. cailliautii permista" were included in this species. Its habitat is edges of primary and secondary forests, clearings, and mosaics of forest and shrub, at elevations up to . This woodpecker eats arboreal ants. Its calls are a plaintive "huweeeeh", a harsh "whee", "kewik",