IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

Ivory-billed woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis). (Campephilus principalis), a 45-centimetre (18-inch) black-and-white bird with a flaring crest (red in the male) and a long whitish bill. It belongs to the family Picidae (order Piciformes). The species was declared extinct in 1995. Its decline coincided with the logging of virgin forest, where it subsisted on deadwood insects. A subspecies, the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker (C.p. bairdii), lived in the pine forests of eastern Cuba. A related species, the imperial woodpecker (C. imperialis) of Mexico, is critically endangered. All these birds appear to have required large trees and isolation from disturbance.