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 Little green woodpecker The little green woodpecker or golden-backed woodpecker ("Campethera maculosa") is a species of bird in the family Picidae. It is found in Africa, living in forest edges, clearings, and forest-shrub mosaics. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed it as a least-concern species. This species was described by Achille Valenciennes in 1826, as "Picus maculosus". It does not include any subspecies, but the subspecies "permista" of the green-backed woodpecker is sometimes included in this species. The two species have hybridised in Ghana. The little green woodpecker is about long and weighs about . The