Chestnut Woodpecker (Celeus elegans) [XC466528]
by Brice de la Croix from MUSA, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil (call, drumming)
Chestnut Woodpecker (Celeus elegans) [XC97538]
by Fabrice Schmitt from Napo Wildlife Center, Orellana, Ecuador (song?)
Subspecies
Possibly forms a superspecies with Chestnut-colored Woodpecker (Celeus castaneus), Pale-crested Woodpecker (Celeus lugubris) and Blond-crested Woodpecker (Celeus flavescens). Dark-crowned, short-crested subspecies jumanus and citreopygius sometimes considered to form a separate species. Birds from upper R Branco, in northern Brazil, described as subspecies approximans, but appear inseparable from nominate.
Proposed subspecies saturatus (northern Bolivia) indistinguishable from jumanus. Form "Celeus immaculatus", known only from type specimen, supposedly from Panama, appears to be an aberrant form of nominate subspecies of present species with erroneous locality data.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
hellmayri von Berlepsch, 1908 - Eastern Venezuela, Guyana and most of Surinam.
elegans (Müller, 1776) - Eastern Surinam, French Guiana, and northern Brazil north of Amazon (Roraima to Amapį).
jumanus (von Spix, 1824) - Eastern Colombia and southern Venezuela (Amazonas, southern Bolķvar) through western and central Brazil (north of Amazon east to R Negro and south of Amazon east to Maranhķo, and south to Rondōnia and Mato Grosso) to northern Bolivia.