Appearance
It is a medium-sized, rufous-coloured woodpecker with a short crest and a short, weak and slightly curved black bill. It has black vermiculations on its rufous body and a dark eye stripe. The upperparts are finely barred black. The male has small red patches at the eyes.This singular species was formerly placed in the South American genus ''Celeus'' simply due to its somewhat similar appearance and for lack of a better alternative, but it differed from these species in many aspects. DNA sequence analyses have confirmed that the rufous woodpecker should be placed in the monotypic genus ''Micropternus''. Its closest relatives seem to be the enigmatic woodpeckers of the genus ''Meiglyptes'' and possibly ''Hemicircus''.
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