Dinopium is a genus of birds in the woodpecker family Picidae. The species are found in South and Southeast Asia.
The genus was introduced by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1814 to accommodate the common flameback (Dinopium javanense).[1] [2] The name combines the Classical Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: deinos meaning "mighty" or "huge" and ōps/ōpos meaning "appearance".[3]
A large phylogenetic study of the woodpecker family Picidae published in 2017 found that the genus was paraphyletic. The olive-backed woodpecker (Dinopium rafflesii) is more closely related to the pale-headed woodpecker (Gecinulus grantia) than it is to other members of the genus Dinopium.[4]
As presently constituted, the genus contains the following 5 species:[5]
| Image | Scientific name | Common Name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dinopium shorii | Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, and Nepal | ||
| Dinopium javanense | Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam | ||
| Dinopium everetti | island of Palawan in the Philippines. | ||
| Dinopium benghalense | Pakistan, India south of the Himalayas and east till the western Assam valley and Meghalaya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka | ||
| Dinopium psarodes | Sri Lanka | ||