Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) [XC297478]
by Jim Holmes from Santa Cruz Island, California, United States (call)
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) [XC624993]
by Ron Overholtz from Baker Meadow, Big Pine, Inyo County, California, United States (call, drumming)
Subspecies
Forms a superspecies with Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) and sometimes treated as conspecific but, although south-western populations not significantly different genetically from that species, hybridization is very limited (in central and southern Arizona), with moderate ecological separation too, and the two are better regarded as allospecies. Subspecies commonly divided into four geographical groups, each considered a separate species in the past: "auratus group" (which includes luteus) in northern and eastern North America, with yellow flight-feather shafts; "cafer group" (also including collaris, mexicanus, nanus and extinct rufipileus) in western North America and Mexico, with red shafts; "mexicanoides group" in highlands from southern Mexico to Nicaragua; and geographically isolated "chrysocaulosus group" (with gundlachi) in Cuba and Grand Cayman. First two groups interbreed in extensive and long since stable hybrid zone from Alaska through the Great Plains, where relatively few individuals are typical of one form or the other, and non-assortative mating is common. Relationships among groups and individual subspecies complex, poorly understood; also, considerable individual variation occurs, and subspecies interbreed wherever they meet. Further research and revision is needed.
Additional described subspecies, considered to represent intergrades or otherwise inadequately differentiated, include borealis (north-west to north-central North America), sedentarius (Santa Cruz I, California), martirensis (San Pedro Mártir Mts, in north-western Baja California) and pinicolus (highlands of El Salvador to northern Nicaragua). Subspecies rufipileus (Guadalupe I, off western Baja California) is extinct.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
luteus Bangs, 1898 - Central Alaska eastern across Canada to southern Labrador and Newfoundland, and south to Montana and north-eastern USA.
auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) - South-eastern USA.
cafer (Gmelin, JF, 1788) - Southern Alaska and British Columbia south to northern California. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Red-shafted Flicker (Colaptes cafer).
collaris Vigors, 1829 - South-western USA south to north-western Baja California and western Mexico (south to about Durango).
mexicanus Swainson, 1827 - Durango eastern across Mexican Plateau to San Luis Potosí and south to Oaxaca.
nanus Griscom, 1934 - Western Texas south to north-eastern Mexico.
mexicanoides Lafresnaye, 1844 - Highlands from southern Mexico (Chiapas) to Nicaragua. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Guatemalan Flicker (Colaptes mexicanoides).
chrysocaulosus Gundlach, 1858 - Cuba.
gundlachi Cory, 1886 - Grand Cayman I.
rufipileus! Ridgway, 1876 - Guadalupe I., Mexico. Extinct.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet