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99-439: The origin of the word Kiamichi is a matter of debate and may never be fully known. Most accounts say the word is a French word, which has been transliterated phonetically, for "horned screamer" or "noisy bird," a reference to woodpeckers or other birds living along the river's banks. The spelling of the modern word was not standardized until the twentieth century, making its origin more difficult to determine. The Antlers News ,

198-581: A termite colony or fruit-laden tree, driving away other conspecifics and returning frequently until the resource is exhausted. Aggressive behaviors include bill pointing and jabbing, head shaking, wing flicking, chasing, drumming, and vocalizations. Ritual actions do not usually result in contact, and birds may "freeze" for a while before they resume their dispute. The colored patches may be flouted, and in some instances, these antagonistic behaviors resemble courtship rituals. Group-living species tend to be communal group breeders. In addition to these species,

297-527: A 100 gram (3.5 oz) reference amount, dried hickory nuts supply 657 calories , and are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value , DV) of several B vitamins and dietary minerals , especially manganese at 220% DV. An extract from shagbark hickory bark is used in an edible syrup similar to maple syrup , with a slightly bitter, smoky taste. The Cherokee people would produce a green dye from hickory bark, which they used to dye cloth. When this bark

396-520: A base in Texas —went awry in poor weather and two planes crashed. One crashed into the south slope of White Rock Mountain above Moyers, Oklahoma , and the other on Big Mountain between Moyers and Kosoma . Two fliers lost their lives in the latter crash. In 2000 school children from Rattan, Oklahoma erected the AT6 Monument in their honor on Big Mountain. Also during World War II, the U.S. Navy honored

495-571: A circus in Hugo, Oklahoma. They were found at Hugo Lake. Fishing and hunting are common along the river, as is boating . American Whitewater , a private organization, defines seven miles of the river near Big Cedar as a "Class II-III rapid ". In these upper reaches of the river, kayaking is a popular sport among tourists. In Hugo Lake, boating and camping are popular. Sardis Lake has yet to be tapped for large-scale tourism, but its campgrounds are well used. Some boating and waterskiing takes place on

594-598: A corridor. The Native Americans who lived in the region prior to European colonization of the Americas were generally Caddo , who were nomads. The powerful Caddoan Mississippian culture based at Spiro Mounds held sway over the Kiamichi River valley, which formed a part of its trade network. Archeological finds across the Kiamichi River basin attest to early life in its valley. A prehistoric fish weir , or trap, in

693-486: A crest or tufted feathers on their crowns. Woodpeckers tend to be sexually dimorphic , but differences between the sexes are generally small; exceptions to this are Williamson's sapsucker and the orange-backed woodpecker , which differ markedly. The plumage is moulted fully once a year apart from the wrynecks , which have an additional partial moult before breeding. Woodpeckers, piculets, and wrynecks all possess characteristic zygodactyl feet , consisting of four toes,

792-477: A fast, direct form of flight, but the majority of species have a typical undulating flight pattern consisting of a series of rapid flaps followed by a swooping glide. Many birds in the genus Melanerpes have distinctive, rowing wing-strokes while the piculets engage in short bursts of rapid direct flight. Woodpeckers have a mostly cosmopolitan distribution , although they are absent from Australasia , Madagascar, and Antarctica . They are also absent from some of

891-480: A hard surface with great rapidity. After a pause, the drum roll is repeated, with each species having a pattern that is unique in the number of beats in the roll, the length of the roll, the length of the gap between rolls, and the cadence. The drumming is mainly a territorial call, equivalent to the song of a passerine . Woodpeckers choose a surface that resonates, such as a hollow tree, and may use man-made structures such as gutters and downpipes. Drumming serves for

990-408: A hole in a tree. The tongue was reported to be used to spear grubs, but more detailed studies published in 2004 have shown that the tongue instead wraps around the prey before being pulled out. Many of the foraging, breeding, and signaling behaviors of woodpeckers involve drumming and hammering using their bills. To prevent brain damage from the rapid and repeated powerful impacts, woodpeckers have

1089-407: A lack of habitat to which to disperse. A pair works together to help build the nest, incubate the eggs, and raise their altricial young. In most species, though, the male does most of the nest excavation and takes the night shift while incubating the eggs. A clutch usually consists of two to five round, white eggs. Since these birds are cavity nesters, their eggs do not need to be camouflaged and

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1188-720: A long, descending trill, or a descending series of two to six (sometimes more) individual notes, and this song alerts ornithologists to the presence of the birds, as they are easily overlooked. Most woodpecker species feed on insects and other invertebrates living under bark and in wood, but overall, the family is characterized by its dietary flexibility, with many species being both highly omnivorous and opportunistic. The diet includes ants, termites, beetles and their larvae, caterpillars, spiders, other arthropods, bird eggs, nestlings, small rodents, lizards, fruit, nuts, and sap. Many insects and their grubs are taken from living and dead trees by excavation. The bird may hear sounds from inside

1287-754: A massive logjam in the Red River which prevented river traffic from going much beyond Nachitoches . In 1825 the Arkansas legislature petitioned the United States Congress to remove the Great Raft , as the logjam was called, so that boats could ply the Red River as far west as the mouth of the Kiamichi and the newly established Fort Towson . Within several years, the Army Corps of Engineers had done so. Security along

1386-543: A member of Eastern North American landscapes, however its range has contracted and Carya is no longer extant west of the Rocky Mountains . Fossils of early hickory nuts show simpler, thinner shells than modern species with the exception of pecans , suggesting that the trees gradually developed defenses to rodent seed predation. During this time, the genus had a distribution across the Northern Hemisphere, but

1485-528: A month to finish the job and abandoned holes are used by other birds and mammals that are cavity nesters unable to excavate their own holes. Cavities are in great demand for nesting by other cavity nesters, so woodpeckers face competition for the nesting sites they excavate from the moment the hole becomes usable. This may come from other species of woodpecker, or other cavity-nesting birds such as swallows and starlings. Woodpeckers may aggressively harass potential competitors, and also use other strategies to reduce

1584-600: A newspaper published in what was then Antlers, Indian Territory (now in Oklahoma) first used the spelling "Kiamichi" in November 1900. Prior to this, the newspaper, along with other authoritative sources, spelled the name of the river as "Kiamichia" or "Kiamitia" (the latter is closest to a French spelling). Muriel H. Wright suggested that Kaimichi may be from the French word kamichi , which meant "horned screamer", and possibly referred to

1683-470: A number of physical features that protect their brains. These include a relatively small and smooth brain, narrow subdural space , little cerebrospinal fluid surrounding it to prevent it from moving back and forth inside the skull during pecking, the orientation of the brain within the skull (which maximises the contact area between the brain and the skull) and the short duration of contact. The skull consists of strong but compressible, sponge-like bone, which

1782-465: A number of species may join mixed-species foraging flocks with other insectivorous birds, although they tend to stay at the edges of these groups. Joining these flocks allows woodpeckers to decrease their anti-predator vigilance and increase their feeding rate. Woodpeckers are diurnal, roosting at night inside holes and crevices. In many species the roost will become the nest-site during the breeding season, but in some species they have separate functions;

1881-475: A portion of their time feeding on the ground, and a very small minority have abandoned trees entirely and nest in holes in the ground. The ground woodpecker is one such species, inhabiting the rocky and grassy hills of South Africa , and the Andean flicker is another. The Swiss Ornithological Institute has set up a monitoring program to record breeding populations of woodland birds. This has shown that deadwood

1980-412: A round entrance hole that just fits the bird, leading to an enlarged vertical chamber below. No nesting material is used, apart from some wood chips produced during the excavation; other wood chips are liberally scattered on the ground, thus providing visual evidence of the site of the nest. Many species of woodpeckers excavate one hole per breeding season, sometimes after multiple attempts. It takes around

2079-617: A small number of trees exist, or in the case of desert species like the Gila woodpecker, tall cacti are available for nesting. Some are specialists and are associated with coniferous or deciduous woodlands, or even, like the acorn woodpecker , with individual tree genera ( oaks in this case). Other species are generalists and are able to adapt to forest clearance by exploiting secondary growth , plantations, orchards , and parks. In general, forest-dwelling species need rotting or dead wood on which to forage. Several species are adapted to spending

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2178-439: A thickened nictitating membrane closes, protecting the eye from flying debris. These membranes also prevent the retina from tearing. Their nostrils are also protected; they are often slit-like and have special feathers to cover them. Woodpeckers are capable of repeated pecking on a tree at high decelerations on the order of 10,000  m/s (33,000  ft/s ) (1000 g ). Some large woodpeckers such as Dryocopus have

2277-621: A useful service by their removal of insect pests on trees. The Picidae are one of nine living families in the order Piciformes , the others being barbets (comprising three families), toucans , toucan-barbets , and honeyguides , which (along with woodpeckers) comprise the clade Pici , and the jacamars and puffbirds in the clade Galbuli . DNA sequencing has confirmed the sister relationships of these two groups. The family Picidae includes about 240 species arranged in 35 genera . Almost 20 species are threatened with extinction due to loss of habitat or habitat fragmentation , with one,

2376-404: Is evergreen . Hickory flowers are small, yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible . The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2–5 cm (0.8–2.0 in) long and 1.5–3 cm (0.6–1.2 in) diameter, enclosed in a four- valved husk , which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, but thin in a few, notably

2475-573: Is a common name for trees composing the genus Carya , which includes 19 species accepted by Plants of the World Online . Seven species are native to southeast Asia in China , Indochina , and northeastern India ( Assam ), and twelve are native to North America . A number of hickory species are used for their edible nuts or for their wood. The name "hickory" derives from a Native American word in an Algonquian language (perhaps Powhatan ). It

2574-458: Is a shortening of pockerchicory , pocohicora , or a similar word, which may be the name for the hickory tree's nut, or may be a milky drink made from such nuts. The genus name Carya is Ancient Greek : κάρυον , káryon , meaning " nut ". Hickories are temperate to subtropical forest trees with pinnately compound leaves and large nuts . Most are deciduous , but one species ( C. sinensis , syn. Annamocarya sinensis ) in southeast Asia

2673-440: Is a successful strategy and a higher proportion of young is reared than is the case with birds that nest in the open. In Africa, several species of honeyguide are brood parasites of woodpeckers. The Picidae are just one of nine living families in the order Piciformes . Other members of this group, such as the jacamars , puffbirds , barbets , toucans , and honeyguides , have traditionally been thought to be closely related to

2772-482: Is a woodpecker. The following cladogram is based on the comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the woodpeckers published in 2017 together with the list of bird species maintained by Frank Gill , Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). The Cuban green woodpecker in the monotypic genus Xiphidiopicus was not included in

2871-451: Is an important habitat requirement for the black woodpecker , great spotted woodpecker , middle spotted woodpecker , lesser spotted woodpecker , European green woodpecker , and Eurasian three-toed woodpecker . Populations of all these species increased by varying amounts from 1990 to 2008. During this period, the amount of deadwood in the forest increased and the range of the white-backed woodpecker enlarged as it extended eastwards. With

2970-517: Is hard, stiff, dense and shock resistant. There are woods stronger than hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood. Hickory is therefore used in a number of items requiring these properties, such as tool handles, bows , wheel spokes, walking sticks , drumsticks and wood flooring . Baseball bats were formerly made of hickory, but are now more commonly made of ash ; however, it

3069-410: Is heavily conserved across species' respective ranges, indicating that there likely are not 'dialects' as seen in passerine song. Drumming in woodpeckers is controlled by a set of nuclei in the forebrain that closely resemble the brain regions that underlie song learning and production in many songbirds. A 2023 study revealed a strong association between extractive foraging and relative brain size across

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3168-402: Is most concentrated in the forehead and the back of the skull. Another anatomical adaptation of woodpeckers is the enormously elongated hyoid bone which subdivides, passes on either side of the spinal column and wraps around the brain case, before ending in the right nostril cavity. It plays the role of safety-belt. Computer simulations have shown that 99.7% of the energy generated in pecking

3267-558: Is not well documented, but the known fossils allow some preliminary conclusions; the earliest known modern picids were piculet-like forms of the Late Oligocene , about 25 million years ago (Mya). By that time, however, the group was already present in the Americas and Europe, and they actually may have evolved much earlier, maybe as early as the Early Eocene (50 Mya). The modern subfamilies appear to be rather young by comparison; until

3366-495: Is replacing ash as the wood of choice for Scottish shinty sticks. Hickory was also extensively used for the construction of early aircraft. Due to its grain structure, hickory is more susceptible to moisture absorption than other species of wood, and is therefore more prone to shrinkage, warping or swelling with changes in humidity. Hickory is also highly prized for wood-burning stoves and chimineas , as its density and high energy content make it an efficient fuel. Hickory wood

3465-401: Is stored in the form of strain energy , which is distributed throughout the bird's body, with only a small remaining fraction of the energy going into the brain. The pecking also causes the woodpecker's skull to heat up, which is part of the reason why they often peck in short bursts with brief breaks in between, giving the head some time to cool. During the millisecond before contact with wood,

3564-501: Is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species. These include: The hickory leaf stem gall phylloxera ( Phylloxera caryaecaulis ) also uses the hickory tree as a food source. Phylloxeridae are related to aphids and have a similarly complex life cycle. Eggs hatch in early spring and the galls quickly form around the developing insects. Phylloxera galls may damage weakened or stressed hickories, but are generally harmless. Deformed leaves and twigs can rain down from

3663-661: The African piculet and two species in the genus Sasia that are found in Southeast Asia. The wrynecks (Jynginae) are found exclusively in the Old World, with the two species occurring in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Most woodpeckers are sedentary, but a few examples of migratory species are known, such as the rufous-bellied woodpecker , yellow-bellied sapsucker , and Eurasian wryneck , which breeds in Europe and west Asia and migrates to

3762-508: The American Civil War , the last Confederate Army troops to surrender did so at Fort Towson on June 23, 1865. The Confederate States government had disintegrated by this time, and its individual armies surrendered one by one. While the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Virginia signaled the end to the conflict, it did not truly end until the surrender of the last fighting Southern troops at Fort Towson. Transportation in

3861-598: The Bermuda flicker , being extinct and a further two possibly being so. Woodpeckers include the tiny piculets , the smallest of which appears to be the bar-breasted piculet at 7.5 cm (3.0 in) in length and a weight of 8.9 g (0.31 oz). Some of the largest woodpeckers can be more than 50 cm (20 in) in length. The largest surviving species is the great slaty woodpecker , which weighs 430 g (15 oz) on average and up to 563 g (19.9 oz), and measures 45 to 55 cm (18 to 22 in), but

3960-617: The Pleistocene Ice Age beginning 2 million years ago obliterated it from Europe. In Anatolia, the genus appears to have disappeared only in the early Holocene , probably related to human disturbance. The distribution of Carya in North America also contracted and it completely disappeared from the continent west of the Rocky Mountains . It is likely that the genus originated in North America, and later spread to Europe and Asia. The genus Carya (not to be confused with Careya in

4059-551: The Sahel in Africa in the winter. More northerly populations of Lewis's woodpecker , northern flicker , Williamson's sapsucker, red-breasted sapsucker , and red-naped sapsucker all move southwards in the fall in North America. Most woodpecker movements can be described as dispersive, such as when young birds seek territories after fledging, or eruptive, to escape harsh weather conditions. Several species are altitudinal migrants, for example

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4158-512: The West Indian woodpecker . Another unusual social system is that of the acorn woodpecker, which is a polygynandrous cooperative breeder where groups of up to 12 individuals breed and help to raise the young. Young birds from previous years may stay behind to help raise the group's young, and studies have found reproductive success for the group goes up with group size, but individual success goes down. Birds may be forced to remain in groups due to

4257-572: The black-backed woodpecker and the American and Eurasian three-toed woodpeckers , which have only three toes on each foot. The tails of all woodpeckers, except the piculets and wrynecks, are stiffened, and when the bird perches on a vertical surface, the tail and feet work together to support it. Woodpeckers have strong bills that they use for drilling and drumming on trees, and long, sticky tongues for extracting food (insects and larvae). Woodpecker bills are typically longer, sharper, and stronger than

4356-507: The ectropodactyl toe arrangement evolved. These latter characters may have facilitated enormous increases in body size in some lineages. Prehistoric representatives of the extant Picidae genera are treated in the genus articles. An enigmatic form based on a coracoid , found in Pliocene deposits of New Providence in the Bahamas , has been described as Bathoceleus hyphalus and probably also

4455-455: The grey-and-buff woodpecker makes several shallow holes for roosting which are quite distinct from its nesting site. Most birds roost alone and will oust intruders from their chosen site, but the Magellanic woodpecker and acorn woodpecker are cooperative roosters. Drumming is a form of nonvocal communication used by most species of woodpeckers, and involves the bill being repeatedly struck on

4554-501: The grey-capped pygmy woodpecker , which moves to lowlands from hills during winter. The woodpeckers that do migrate, do so during the day. Overall, woodpeckers are arboreal birds of wooded habitats . They reach their greatest diversity in tropical rainforests , but occur in almost all suitable habitats, including woodlands, savannahs , scrublands , and bamboo forests. Even grasslands and deserts have been colonised by various species. These habitats are more easily occupied where

4653-582: The monophyly of the Picidae, which seem to have originated in the Old World, but the geographic origins of the Picinae is unclear. The Picumninae are returned as paraphyletic . Morphological and behavioural characters, in addition to DNA evidence, highlights genus Hemicircus as the sister group of all remaining true woodpeckers, besides a sister-group relationship between the true woodpecker tribes Dendropicini and Malarpicini. The evolutionary history of this group

4752-562: The piculets , wrynecks and sapsuckers . Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia , New Guinea , New Zealand , Madagascar and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specialises in exploiting cacti. Members of this family are chiefly known for their characteristic behaviour. They mostly forage for insect prey on

4851-551: The whooping cranes along the river. Other spellings of the name have included: Kiomitchie, Cayameechee, Kiamisha, Kimesha, Kimichy, and Kimishi. Another possibility could be the Kichai tribe of the area and dates back to time of Caddo indians. From Pine Mountain the Kiamichi River flows southwest, past Muse , Whitesboro , Albion , Tuskahoma and Clayton to Antlers , where it turns abruptly southeast, flowing in this direction to its confluence with Red River. For much of its journey

4950-412: The 1.0 to 2.5 kHz range for efficient transmission through forested environments. Mated couples may exchange muted, low-pitched calls, and nestlings often issue noisy begging calls from inside their nest cavity. The wrynecks have a more musical song, and in some areas, the song of the newly arrived Eurasian wryneck is considered to be the harbinger of spring. The piculets either have a song consisting of

5049-445: The 1970s and 1980s the river has suffered in environmental quality . Its mussels decreased significantly below the inflow from Sardis dam, and almost extinguished as a species below the inflow from Hugo dam. Nonetheless 101 species of fish still survive, and in some cases thrive, in the river. Woodpeckers Tapping sound of a woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae , which also includes

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5148-744: The Cherokee in Kanuchi soup, but more often edible oil would be extracted through crushing the nuts and then either straining or boiling the remains. Shagbark and shellbark hickory, along with pecan , are regarded by some as the finest nut trees. Pecans are the most important nut tree native to North America. When cultivated for their nuts , clonal ( grafted ) trees of the same cultivar cannot pollinate each other because of their self-incompatibility. Two or more cultivars must be planted together for successful pollination . Seedlings (grown from hickory nuts) will usually have sufficient genetic variation. Hickory wood

5247-534: The Choctaw Nation ceased to exist and its political subdivisions were eliminated. A Choctaw county was named after the river, although generally using the Choctaws’ spelling, Kiamitia . The river formed the eastern boundary of Jack's Fork County and Kiamitia County , and the western boundary of Cedar County and Towson counties. Navigability of the Kiamichi River was an important goal but proved elusive due to

5346-459: The Family Picidae, indicating that a larger brain does not necessarily result in more powerful drumming abilities, but is implicated in foraging behaviors, as the act of sensing and retrieving wood-boring larvae from woody substrates likely requires an increase in sensory and motor control capabilities. Woodpeckers do not have such a wide range of songs and calls as do passerine birds, and

5445-454: The Kiamichi River include Anderson Creek, Big Cedar Creek, Buck Creek , Buffalo Creek, Gates Creek, Jacks’ Fork Creek, Pine Creek, Tenmile Creek and Waterhole Creek. The area of the river's watershed is 1,830 square miles (4,700 km). The Kiamichi River defined its region during prehistoric days. Its valley provided the only convenient means of traversing the region from north to south—much as now—and Native American peoples used it as

5544-495: The Kiamichi River valley was revolutionized between 1882 and 1887 with the construction of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad , commonly known as the Frisco. Part of a national network connecting Fort Smith, Arkansas with Paris, Texas , the railway was constructed parallel to the Kiamichi River from Talihina to Kellond , a small settlement three miles north of Antlers, Oklahoma. With

5643-404: The Kiamichi River valley. French explorers were quickly followed by French fur trappers ; they named most of Oklahoma's rivers. American explorers followed French ones, and were the first organized scientific surveys of the Kiamichi River. Thomas Nuttall traversed the Kiamichi and Little River valleys in 1819 and Stephen H. Long explored the Kiamichi River in 1821. Nuttall and Long were

5742-527: The Lecythidaceae) is in the walnut family, Juglandaceae . In the APG system , this family is included in the order Fagales . Several species are known to hybridize, with around nine accepted, named hybrids. Carya sect. Sinocarya C. sinensis has sometimes been split out in a separate genus as Annamocarya sinensis , but not by Plants of the World Online , as genetic data support it being embedded within

5841-587: The Red River, the United States' (US) international frontier with the Spanish Empire was a concern, and the US established a chain of forts along the border. Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nation was one. It was built on Gates Creek near the mouth of the Kiamichi. A military road was built from Fort Smith to Fort Towson through the valley of Little River, switching to the Kiamichi River near its southern terminus. During

5940-420: The ancestral lineage of true woodpeckers ( Hemicircus excepting). The inner rectrix pairs became stiffened, and the pygostyle lamina was enlarged in the ancestral lineage of true woodpeckers ( Hemicircus included), which facilitated climbing head first up tree limbs. Genus Hemicircus excepting, the tail feathers were further transformed for specialized support, the pygostyle disc became greatly enlarged, and

6039-438: The bills of piculets and wrynecks, but their morphology is very similar. The bill's chisel-like tip is kept sharp by the pecking action in birds that regularly use it on wood. The beak consists of three layers; an outer sheath called rhamphotheca , made of scales formed from keratin proteins, an inner layer of bone which has a large cavity and mineralised collagen fibers, and a middle layer made of porous bone which connects

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6138-459: The chance of being usurped from their nesting sites; for example, the red-crowned woodpecker digs its nest in the underside of a small branch, which reduces the chance that a larger species will take it over and expand it. Members of Picidae are typically monogamous, with a few species breeding cooperatively and some polygamy reported in a few others. Polyandry , where a female raises two broods with two separate males, has also been reported in

6237-537: The county in perhaps hundreds of years. Over 220 archeological sites have been identified in Pushmataha County alone, indicating how widespread ancient and more recent settlement was in the region prior to European settlement. Of those sites, three date from at least 8,000 years ago; 145 date from between 2,000-8,000 years ago; and 22 date from between 500–1000 years ago. Discovery by Europeans occurred in 1719, when French explorer Bernard de la Harpe explored

6336-695: The eight other families in the order Piciformes is shown in the cladogram below. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill , Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). Galbulidae – jacamars (18 species) Bucconidae – puffbirds (38 species) Indicatoridae – honeyguides (16 species) Picidae – woodpeckers (240 species) Megalaimidae – Asian barbets (35 species) Lybiidae – African barbets (42 species) Capitonidae – New World barbets (15 species) Semnornithidae – toucan barbets (2 species) Ramphastidae – toucans (43 species) The name Picidae for

6435-409: The exception of the green and middle-spotted woodpeckers, the increase in the amount of deadwood is likely to be the major factor explaining the population increase of these species. Most woodpeckers live solitary lives, but their behavior ranges from highly antisocial species that are aggressive towards their own kind, to species that live in groups. Solitary species defend such feeding resources as

6534-455: The extinct imperial woodpecker , at 55 to 61 cm (22 to 24 in), and ivory-billed woodpecker , around 48 to 53 cm (19 to 21 in) and 516 g (18.2 oz), were probably both larger. The plumage of woodpeckers varies from drab to conspicuous. The colours of many species are based on olive and brown and some are pied, suggesting a need for camouflage ; others are boldly patterned in black, white, and red, and many have

6633-556: The family was introduced by English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1819. The phylogeny has been updated according to new knowledge about convergence patterns and evolutionary history. Most notably, the relationship of the Picinae genera has been largely clarified, and the Antillean piculet was found to be a surviving offshoot of protowoodpeckers. Genetic analysis supports

6732-458: The first (hallux) and the fourth facing backward and the second and third facing forward. This foot arrangement is good for grasping the limbs and trunks of trees. Members of this family can walk vertically up tree trunks, which is beneficial for activities such as foraging for food or nest excavation. In addition to their strong claws and feet, woodpeckers have short, strong legs. This is typical of birds that regularly forage on trunks. Exceptions are

6831-721: The foliage. Where possible, an area of rotten wood surrounded by sound timber is used. Where trees are in short supply, the gilded flicker and ladder-backed woodpecker excavate holes in cactus, and the Andean flicker and ground woodpecker dig holes in earth banks. The campo flicker sometimes chooses termite mounds, the rufous woodpecker prefers to use ants' nests in trees and the bamboo woodpecker specialises in bamboos. Woodpeckers also excavate nest holes in residential and commercial structures and wooden utility poles. Woodpeckers and piculets excavate their own nests, but wrynecks do not, and need to find pre-existing cavities. A typical nest has

6930-501: The fruit to be a nut. The oldest fossils attributed to Carya are Cretaceous pollen grains from Mexico and New Mexico . Fossil and molecular data suggest the genus Carya may have diversified during the Miocene . Modern Carya first appear in Oligocene strata 34 million years ago. Recent discoveries of Carya fruit fossils further support the hypothesis that the genus has long been

7029-658: The lake. In 1988 Congress created the Upper Kiamichi River Wilderness . Defined as a territory at and below the headwaters of the Kiamichi River at Pine Mountain and Rich Mountain, the wilderness now encompasses 9,754 acres . It is part of the National Wilderness Preservation System . A portion of the river's watershed is also protected by the Ouachita National Forest. Three federally designated endangered species occupy

7128-598: The mid- Miocene (10–15 Mya), all picids seem to have been small or mid-sized birds similar to a mixture between a piculet and a wryneck. A feather enclosed in fossil amber from the Dominican Republic , dated to about 25 Mya, however, seems to indicate that the Nesoctitinae were already a distinct lineage by then. Stepwise adaptations for drilling, tapping, and climbing head first on vertical surfaces have been suggested. The last common ancestor of woodpeckers (Picidae)

7227-517: The mutual recognition of conspecifics and plays a part in courtship rituals. Individual birds are thought to be able to distinguish the drumming of their mates and those of their neighbors. Drumming can be reliably used to distinguish between multiple species in a region, even if those species are phenotypically similar. Cadence (or the mean number of drum beats per second) is heavily conserved within species. Comparative analyses within species between distant geographic populations have shown that cadence

7326-407: The nests of arboreal ants, and the buff-spotted woodpecker feeds on and nests in termite mounds . Other species, such as the wrynecks and the Andean flicker, feed wholly or partly on the ground. Ecologically, woodpeckers help to keep trees healthy by keeping them from suffering mass infestations. The family is noted for its ability to acquire wood-boring grubs from the trunks and branches, whether

7425-492: The next several decades, they cleared the old-growth forest in the Kiamichi Mountains . Forestry remains the area's chief industry . Numerous rail spurs were developed from the Frisco outward along the creek valleys stretching away from the river. Large saw mill operations became common in the valleys for processing the lumber. During World War II, a training flight conducted by Britain's Royal Air Force —flying from

7524-468: The other Asian Carya . Carya sect. Carya – typical hickories Carya sect. Apocarya – pecans Seven species are native to southeast Asia in China , Indochina , and northeastern India ( Assam ), and twelve are native to North America, of which eleven occur in the United States, four in Mexico (of which one, C. palmeri , endemic there), and five extending into southern Canada . Hickory

7623-494: The pecan ( C. illinoinensis ); it is divided into two halves, which split apart when the seed germinates . Some fruit are borderline and difficult to categorize. Hickory ( Carya ) nuts and walnut ( Juglans ) nuts, both in the family Juglandaceae , grow within an outer husk; these fruit are sometimes considered to be drupes or drupaceous nuts, rather than true botanical nuts. "Tryma" is a specialized term for such nut-like drupes. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group however consider

7722-544: The precursors of empire; the region was actively settled by Choctaw Indians displaced from elsewhere in the United States starting in 1832. After the relocation of the Choctaw Nation to the Indian Territory in 1832, the river defined the political boundary or border between counties and districts. Forming an easily recognizable geographic frontier, it served in this capacity until Oklahoma's statehood in 1907, when

7821-472: The river flows through the picturesque and highly defined Kiamichi River valley, framed by mountains of the same name. Pine Mountain, at approximately 2,600 feet (790 m), is the highest, although the mountains lining its course, such as Flagpole Mountain at Clayton, are significant, rising generally between 900 feet (270 m) and 1,800 feet (550 m). At Antlers the river meets the massive geological formation known as Standpipe Hill, forcing its turn to

7920-572: The river in Pushmataha County , excavated by the Oklahoma Archeological Survey , is a particularly revealing site. Ancient Indians diverted the flow of the river with walls of stone to create a chute into which fish would flow. Radiocarbon dating of charred hickory and pecan hulls found at the site indicate a date of approximately 1,200 BC. Also found were stumps of cypress trees, a tree which has not grown in that portion of

8019-490: The river itself. Both are flood-control reservoirs built and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . Additional, smaller dams have impounded the waters of the tributaries over time, mostly for the purpose of powering sawmills and other light, localized industry. Notable geological features of the Kiamichi River valley include McKinley Rocks, the Potato Hills, Rock Town, and Lost Mountain . Major tributaries of

8118-468: The river valley – the Indiana bat , red-cockaded woodpecker and leopard darter . It is also home to a variety of mussels , including several that are somewhat rare. The Kiamichi River has been studied since at least 1894, when the first scientific fish collection was made at Walnut Creek at Albion, Oklahoma . This collection netted 36 different kinds of fish. Since construction of Sardis and Hugo dams in

8217-509: The river with the launch of the USS Kiamichi , hull number AOG-73, built by St. Johns River Shipbuilding in Jacksonville, Florida . She launched on August 17, 1945, three days after the surrender of Japan. Because of the end of the war, completion of the ship was canceled on August 29. A Klickitat-class gasoline tanker , she was later completed for International Tankers of Panama . The ship

8316-424: The sounds they make tend to be simpler in structure. Calls produced include brief, high-pitched notes, trills, rattles, twittering, whistling, chattering, nasal churrs, screams, and wails. These calls are used by both sexes in communication and are related to the circumstances of the occasion; these include courtship, territorial disputes, and alarm calls. Each species has its own range of calls, which tend to be in

8415-465: The southeast. From Antlers to the Red River the Kiamichi is generally characterized by flowing through a broad alluvial plain , particularly on its approach to the Red. Two lakes impound the river or its tributaries: Sardis Lake and Hugo Lake . Sardis Lake, named for the small settlement displaced during its construction, impounds Jack's Fork Creek. Hugo Lake, named for the nearby town of Hugo , impounds

8514-595: The study. The relative positions of Picumninae, Sasiinae and Picinae in the cladogram are uncertain. In the 2017 study the results depended upon which of two different statistical procedures were used to analyse the DNA sequence data. One method found that Sasiinae was sister to Picinae (as shown below), the other method found that Sasiinae was sister to a clade containing both Picumninae and Picinae. Jynx – 2 species (wrynecks) Picumnus – 26 species (piculets) Verreauxia – African piculet Hickory Hickory

8613-530: The technique is not restricted to these, and others such as the acorn woodpecker and white-headed woodpecker also feed on sap. The technique was once thought to be restricted to the New World, but Old World species, such as the Arabian woodpecker and great spotted woodpecker, also feed in this way. All members of the family Picidae nest in cavities, nearly always in the trunks and branches of trees, well away from

8712-508: The timber indicating where creating a hole would be productive. Crustaceans , molluscs , and carrion may be eaten by some species, including the great spotted woodpecker, and bird feeders are visited for suet and domestic scraps. Other means are also used to garner prey. Some species, such as the red-naped sapsucker, sally into the air to catch flying insects, and many species probe into crevices and under bark, or glean prey from leaves and twigs. The rufous woodpecker specialises in attacking

8811-446: The timber is alive or dead. Having hammered a hole into the wood, the prey is extracted by use of a long, barbed tongue. Woodpeckers consume beetles that burrow into trees, removing as many as 85% of emerald ash borer larvae from individual ash trees. The ability to excavate allows woodpeckers to obtain tree sap , an important source of food for some species. Most famously, the sapsuckers (genus Sphyrapicus ) feed in this fashion, but

8910-534: The train came the telegraph and later the telephone. The coming of the Frisco stimulated settlement in the Choctaw Nation by European Americans and European immigrants. Population centers formed around each of the railroad's station stops, stimulated by trade and new markets. The river was important as a source of fresh, plentiful water for the trains, several of which ran daily. The frequent Frisco service encouraged developers to come for resource extraction. Timber companies and individual loggers soon moved in. Over

9009-491: The tree in the spring as squirrels break off infected tissue and eat the galls, possibly for the protein content or because the galls are fleshy and tasty to the squirrels. The pecan gall curculio ( Conotrachelus elegans ) is a true weevil species also found feeding on galls of the hickory leaf stem gall phylloxera. The banded hickory borer ( Knulliana cincta ) is also found on hickories. Dried hickory nuts are 3% water, 18% carbohydrates , 13% protein , and 64% fats . In

9108-525: The trunks and branches of trees, and often communicate by drumming with their beaks, producing a reverberatory sound that can be heard at some distance. Some species vary their diet with fruits, birds' eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion . They usually nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds. They sometimes come into conflict with humans when they make holes in buildings or feed on fruit crops, but perform

9207-633: The two other layers. Furthermore, the tongue bone (or hyoid bone) of the woodpecker is very long, and winds around the skull through a special cavity, thereby cushioning the brain. Combined, this anatomy helps the beak absorb mechanical stress. Species of woodpecker and flicker that use their bills in soil or for probing as opposed to regular hammering tend to have longer and more decurved bills. Due to their smaller bill size, many piculets and wrynecks forage in decaying wood more often than woodpeckers. Their long, sticky tongues, which possess barbs, aid these birds in grabbing and extracting insects from deep within

9306-520: The white color helps the parents to see them in dim light. The eggs are incubated for about 11–14 days before they hatch. About 18–30 days are then needed before the chicks are fully fledged and ready to leave the nest. In most species, soon after this, the young are left to fend for themselves, exceptions being the various social species, and the Hispaniolan woodpecker , where adults continue to feed their young for several months. In general, cavity nesting

9405-461: The woodpecker family ( true woodpeckers , piculets , wrynecks , and sapsuckers ). The clade Pici (woodpeckers, barbets, toucans, and honeyguides) is well supported and shares a zygodactyl foot with the Galbuli (puffbirds and jacamars). More recently, several DNA sequence analyses have confirmed that Pici and Galbuli are sister groups. The phylogenetic relationship between the woodpeckers and

9504-636: The world's oceanic islands , although many insular species are found on continental islands . The true woodpeckers, subfamily Picinae , are distributed across the entire range of the family. The Picumninae piculets have a pantropical distribution, with species in Southeast Asia , Africa, and the Neotropics , with the greatest diversity being in South America. The second piculet subfamily, the Sasiinae, contains

9603-433: Was incapable of climbing up tree trunks or excavating nest cavities by drilling with its beak. The first adaptations for drilling (including reinforced rhamphotheca , frontal overhang, and processus dorsalis pterygoidei ) evolved in the ancestral lineage of piculets and true woodpeckers. Additional adaptations for drilling and tapping (enlarged condylus lateralis of the quadrate and fused lower mandible) have evolved in

9702-497: Was mixed with maple bark, it produced a yellow dye pigment. The ashes of burnt hickory wood were traditionally used to produce a strong lye (potash) fit for soapmaking . The nuts of some species are palatable, while others are bitter and only suitable for animal feed. Hickory nuts were a significant food source for indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands of North America since the middle Archaic period. They were used by

9801-405: Was renamed Transmere in 1951 and in 1952 was sold to Colombia ; it was renamed Sancho Jimeno . On October 29, 1961, President John F. Kennedy visited Big Cedar, east of Talihina, Oklahoma to give a speech marking the opening of U.S. Route 259 . In August 1975 the Kiamichi River made national news when its bottomlands were the scene of a days-long hunt for two elephants that had escaped from

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