European green woodpecker but is made sticky by secretions from the enlarged salivary glands. Heavy, prolonged snow cover makes feeding difficult for the green woodpecker and can result in high mortality, from which it may take 10 years for the population to recover. Ant nests can be located under the snow; one bird was observed to dig 85 cm to reach a nest. 'Professor Yaffle', the wooden bookend character in the 1974 children's animation series "Bagpuss", was based loosely upon the green woodpecker. 'Yaffle' was among many English folk names for the European green woodpecker relating to its laughing call; others include laughing
Lineated woodpecker Lineated woodpecker The lineated woodpecker ("Dryocopus lineatus") is a very large woodpecker which is a resident breeding bird from Mexico south to northern Argentina and on Trinidad. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the lineated woodpecker in his "Ornithologie" based on a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. He used the French name "Le pic noir hupé de Cayenne" and the Latin name "Picus niger cayanensis cristatus". Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766