Veniliornis mixtus
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week >90%
The checkered woodpecker (Veniliornis mixtus) is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The checkered woodpecker was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Picus mixtus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.
The checkered woodpecker was at one time placed in genus Dyctiopicus, which was merged into Dendrocopos, which in turn was merged into Picoides where it and its sister species the striped woodpecker (V. lignarius) were considered outliers. In 2006, Moore et al. published research on mtDNA COI and Cyt b sequences which suggested that the... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | El Impenetrable National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 2 | El Palmar National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 3 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Serra da Canastra National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Chapada dos Guimarães National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 2 | Rosario | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 3 | Cordoba | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 5 | Mendoza | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Checkered Woodpecker sighting in El Impenetrable National Park on a given day, based on 108 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 46th most-seen of the 219 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July and August
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Checkered Woodpecker in El Impenetrable National Park on a given day, against about 20% in January–February and May–June, the lowest months. Those are among El Impenetrable National Park's driest months, with about 30 mm of rain a month against 120 mm in March. December has too few records to rate.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Checkered Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Checkered Woodpecker sightings, El Impenetrable National Park has the highest daily chance: about 40%. Next come El Palmar National Park (Argentina, about 10%) and Iberá National Park (Argentina, about 10%).
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Checkered Woodpecker that you can see in El Impenetrable National Park (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are White-fronted Woodpecker (about 40%), Cream-backed Woodpecker (about 40%) and Green-barred Woodpecker (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Checkered Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in El Impenetrable National Park (108 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
