White circles on their wings are visible when in flight. When flying, they take a few flaps of their wings and drop a foot or so. The white neck, throat, and forehead patches are distinctive identifiers. In most subspecies, adult males have a red cap starting at the forehead, whereas females have a black area between the forehead and the cap.
There is a small part on the small of their backs where there are some greenish feathers. The eyes are initially dark in fledglings, turning to white within a few months. The adult acorn woodpecker has a brownish-black head, back, wings and tail, white forehead, throat, belly and rump. striatipectus Ridgway, 1874 – Nicaragua to west Panama lineatus ( Dickey & Van Rossem, 1927) – Chiapas (south Mexico) to north Nicaragua albeolus Todd, 1910 – east Chiapas (southeast Mexico) to Belize and northeast Guatemala formicivorus ( Swainson, 1827) – southwest USA to southeast Mexico angustifrons Baird, SF, 1870 – south Baja California (Mexico) bairdi Ridgway, 1881 – Oregon (USA) to north Baja California (Mexico) Within Melanerpes the acorn woodpecker is sister to a clade containing two South American species: the white woodpecker ( Melanerpes candidus) and the white-fronted woodpecker ( Melanerpes cactorum). The acorn woodpecker is one of 24 species now placed in the genus Melanerpes that was introduced by Swainson in 1832. The type locality is Temascaltepec in Mexico. The specific epithet combines the Latin formica meaning "ant" with -vorus meaning "eating". The acorn woodpecker was formally described in 1827 by the English naturalist William John Swainson under the binomial name Picus formicivorus from a specimen collected in Mexico. The acorn woodpecker ( Melanerpes formicivorus) is a medium-sized woodpecker, 21 cm (8.3 in) long, with an average weight of 85 g (3.0 oz).
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