Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Dryobates scalaris) [XC878012]
by Jarrod Swackhamer from Ironwood Forest NM southeast of Waterman Mtns, Pima County, Arizona, United States (song)
Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Dryobates scalaris) [XC534467]
by Bobby Wilcox from Ahome, Sinaloa, Mexico (call)
Subspecies
Forms a superspecies with Nuttall's Woodpecker (Dryobates nuttallii), with which it occasionally hybridizes. Also closely related to Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens). Has possibly interbred also with Hairy Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus). Considerable individual and some clinal variation; described subspecies centrophilus (western Mexico), azelus (southern Mexico), symplectus (south-eastern Colorado and western Oklahoma south to north-eastern Mexico), giraudi (east-central Mexico), ridgwayi (south-eastern Veracruz) and percus (Chiapas) regarded as indistinguishable.
The following 9 subspecies are recognised:
cactophilus Oberholser, 1911 - South-western USA, from south-eastern California, southern Nevada, south-western Utah, south-eastern Colorado, western Oklahoma and western Texas, south to north-eastern Baja California and southern in central Mexico to Michoacán and Puebla.