Northern Barred Woodcreeper

The northern barred woodcreeper (Dendrocolaptes sanctithomae) is a sub-oscine passerine bird in subfamily Dendrocolaptinae of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found from southern Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. == Taxonomy and systematics == The northern barred woodcreeper was originally treated as a subspecies of the Amazonian barred woodcreeper (D. certhia). They were separated in the 1990s and remain a superspecies. Its further taxonomy, however, is unsettled. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) and the Clements taxonomy assign it these four subspecies: D. s. sheffleri Binford, 1965 D. s. sanctithomae (Lafresnaye, 1852) D. s. hesperius Bangs, 1907 D. s. punctipectus Phelps, WH & Gilliard, 1940 BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) treats D. s. punctipectus as a separate species, the eastern barred woodcreeper, and calls D. sanctitihomae the western barred woodcreeper. Clements recognizes the western and eastern designations within the single species, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society notes a publication that proposes the separation. Subspecies D. s. sheffleri has been treated by at least one author as a separate species, and several subspecies in addition to the four have been proposed and rejected. This article follows the…