The
Varzea Piculet is a species of
birdBirds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
in the
PicidaeThe woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks are a family, Picidae, of near-passerine birds. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia and New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions...
family, the
woodpeckerWoodpeckers are near passerine birds of the order Piciformes. They are one subfamily in the family Picidae, which also includes the piculets and wrynecks. They are found worldwide and include about 180 species....
s,
piculetThe piculets are a distinctive subfamily of small woodpeckers which occur mainly in tropical South America, with just three Asian and one African species....
s, and
wryneckThe wrynecks are a small but distinctive group of small Old World woodpeckers.Like the true woodpeckers, wrynecks have large heads, long tongues which they use to extract their insect prey and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backwards...
s. It is endemic to
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
's
Amazon BasinThe Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
.
Its natural
habitat* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
s are subtropical or tropical moist lowland
forestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
s, subtropical or tropical
swampA swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
s, subtropical or tropical dry
shrublandShrubland, scrubland, scrub or brush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity...
, and heavily degraded former forest.
Amazon River corridor
The Varzea Piculet lives along the
Amazon RiverThe Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
in a
wildlife corridorA wildlife corridor or green corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities . This allows an exchange of individuals between populations, which may help prevent the negative effects of inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity that often occur within...
, the forest called
Várzea forest, a
freshwater swamp forestFreshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes...
. It ranges from the confluence of the Amazon River with the Rio Negro in a 275 km, variable width corridor downstream for about 850 km to the confluence of the
Trombetas RiverThe Trombetas is a river on the northern side of the Amazon River. Its confluence with the Amazon is just north of the town of Óbidos, Pará in Brazil. It has its sources in the Guyana highlands, but its long course is frequently interrupted by violent currents, rocky barriers, and rapids...
from the north. The confluence of the
Tapajós RiverThe Tapajós, a Brazilian river running through a humid and hot valley, pours into the Amazon River 500 miles above Pará and is about 1200 miles long.It rises on the lofty Brazilian plateau near Diamantino in 14 degrees 25' south latitude...
joins here from the south.