The checkered woodpecker was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial namePicus mixtus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The checkered woodpecker is now placed in the genusVeniliornis that was introduced by the French ornithologistCharles Lucien Bonaparte in 1854. The generic name combines the name of the Roman deityVenilia with the Ancient Greek word ornis meaning "bird". The specific epithetmixtus is the Latin word for "mixed" or "jumbled". This species was until recently classified in the genus Picoides. With its sister taxon, the striped woodpecker, it was difficult to place in this genus due to the odd head-pattern and the fine, yet bold body and wing spotting. mtDNACOI and Cyt bsequence analyses have shown that their closest relative is rather the white-spotted woodpecker, Veniliornis spilogaster which unlike its congeners shares the two "Picoides"' pattern, but is abundistic. This species co-occurs with V. m. cancellatus over much of their range. In an apparent case of character displacement, the latter is by far the lightest and least-patterned subspecies. Four subspecies are recognised:
V. m. mixtus – east Paraguay, Uruguay and northeast Argentina
V. m. malleator – Chaco region of southeast Bolivia, west Paraguay and north Argentina
V. m. berlepschi – west central and central Argentina
Subspecific differences run contrary to Gloger's rule. V. m. malleator and V. m. berlepschi, which inhabit arid habitat, have darker and more prominent underside patterning, whereas the other two subspecies which are birds of mesic or riparian woodland are paler overall.
Description
The bird is about long. Its coloring is black and white, and the male has a red area on the back of its head.
Status and conservation
It is a widespread species and not considered threatened by the IUCN.>
