Speckle-chested Piculet

The speckle-chested piculet is 9 to 10 cm (3.5 to 3.9 in) long and weighs about 10 g (0.35 oz). Adult males have a black cap with a red patch on the forehead and white spots on the rest of it. Their upperparts are grayish brown whose feathers have pale gray edges and dark marks near the end that give a scalloped appearance. Their rump is paler. Their flight feathers are brown with pale gray or off-white edges on the secondaries and tertials. Their tail is blackish; the innermost pair of feathers have mostly white inner webs and the outer two pairs have a white patch near the end. Their chin and throat feathers are white with black tips. Their breast is black with large teardrop shaped white spots, and their belly and undertail coverts are white with wide black bars. Adult females are identical but with small white spots instead of red on the forehead.

The speckle-chested piculet is endemic to a very small area of Peru. It is known only from the central Huallaga Valley and certain parts of the Utcubamba Valley in the foothills of the eastern Andes. Other nearby areas with similar habitat have not been explored so the species' range possibly is larger. It mostly inhabits humid lowland primary forest and montane forest with vines, epiphytes and bamboos, but it also occurs in mature secondary forest. In elevation it ranges between 1,000 and 2,300 m (3,300 and 7,500 ft).

The speckle-chested piculet apparently forages mostly in the forest canopy but also has been observed feeding at lower levels as well. It feeds alone, in pairs, or in small family groups and often joins mixed-species foraging flocks. Its diet has not been studied but is assumed to be mostly insects.