This woodpecker lives mainly in Mexico’s Sierra Madre and reaches only a small part of southern Arizona and New Mexico. It has a wood-brown back and spotted underparts.
Its back is wood-brown and its underparts are spotted, unlike the black-and-white pattern of many North American woodpeckers.
It flies to the base of a tree and spirals up the trunk while foraging, mainly for insects. Outside the breeding season it sometimes joins mixed-species flocks.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.