Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

The yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) is a medium-sized woodpecker that breeds in Canada and the northeastern United States. == Taxonomy == The yellow-bellied sapsucker was described and illustrated using a hand-coloured plate by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands which was published between 1729 and 1732. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he included the yellow-bellied sapsucker, coined the binomial name Picus varius and cited Catesby's book. The specific epithet varius is the Latin word meaning "various", "diverse" or "variegated". Linnaeus specified the type locality as America septentrionalis (North America) but the locality is now restricted to South Carolina. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is now placed in the genus Sphyrapicus that was erected in 1858 by the American naturalist Spencer Baird with the yellow-bellied sapsucker as the type species. Within the genus Sphyrapicus, the yellow-bellied sapsucker is sister to a clade containing the red-breasted sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber ) and the red-naped sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis). The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. == Description == The yellow-bellied sapsucker has a length of around 19 to 21 centimetres (7+1⁄2 to 8+1⁄4…