The Olive Woodpecker inhabits forests and dense woodland from central to southern Africa. Its olive-gray underside and upper-canopy foraging are characteristic.
It is about 17–19 cm long. Compared with similar gray woodpeckers it is darker and less barred, with olive-gray underparts.
It probes and pecks at branches high in trees, taking insects and larvae with its tongue. Both sexes excavate a tree-trunk cavity, lay two to three eggs, and share incubation, according to the species account.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.