La Tête et Le Pied du Megapicus Imperialis

Originally posted 6/13/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this illustration of the head and foot of an Imperial Woodpecker, accompanied by the same for the Black Woodpecker of Europe (Dryocopus martius) for comparative purposes in the preface of Alfred Malherbe's Monographie des Picidées.  The image above is within the public domain and it appears here courtesy of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.

The Imperial Woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in the world, is the subject of an earlier post here at Campephilus Woodpeckers and, appropriately, the subject of the first plate within Monographie des Picidées:

While we're on the topic, recently Mark Michaels made the following post at the Ivory-bill Researchers Forum that will lead you to a rarely seen still from a video of the Imperial Woodpecker that belongs to Cornell University.  He wrote:

This recent publication from Partners in Flight includes a still from the footage of the Imperial Woodpecker on page 11. It should have some relevance for IBWO searchers. Another still appears in Snyder's Travails of Two Woodpeckers, but as far as I know this is the first time any of the images has appeared online.

Find the publication here at this link.

Also, here is a link to the organization's website:  http://www.savingoursharedbirds.org/

To my knowledge, this is the sole imagery available of the Imperial Woodpecker aside from illustrations and images of museum specimens, so it's quite a wonder!