The Pale-billed Woodpecker (=Flint-billed Woodpecker), Campephilus guatemalensis, forms a with C. melanoleucos and C. gayaquilensis. Pale-billed Woodpeckers are found in Central America from Mexico through Guatemala to western Panama. They can be common in well forested area, but are rarely found in extensively deforested areas. They occur in tall rain forest as well as in humid and dry forest and edge, gaps, and clearings with scattered trees. They also occur in tall second growth and in the lower parts of the pine-oak woodland belt (in the northern portion of the range), plantations, and . They occur from lowlands and foothills up to 2000 m in Mexico and Guatemala, up to 1200-1500 m in Panama and on the southern Pacific slope of Costa Rica, and up to 1000 m in northern Costa Rica. Pale-billed Woodpeckers occur singly or in pairs. They are paired throughout the year, but sleep singly in cavities. Although these are essentially forest birds, they often forage in cleared areas. They tend to forage at higher levels, but descend lower at edges, clearings, or in second growth. Although they favor trunks and large branches, they use small twigs as well. The diet is composed largely of larvae of wood-boring beetles (often cerambycids), scarabaeid larvae, and ant larvae, although some fruit is eaten as well.
(Winkler et al. 1995 and references therein; Winkler and Christie 2002 and references therein; del Hoyo et al. 2014 and references therein)
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