[5] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[6] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Picus torquatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

By the middle of the century Cerchneipicus had been merged into its current genus Celeus that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1831.

Both sexes of all subspecies have a pale cinnamon head with a rufous tinge and a moderately bushy crest.

All subspecies' bills are long with a maxilla that is various shades of gray or brown and a grayish white or greenish yellow mandible.

The rest of their underparts are pale buffish white with heavy dark barring that approaches "V" shape on the flanks.

Subspecies C. t. tinnunculus is found only in large tracts of closed canopy Atlantic Forest between sea level and 100 m (300 ft).

In most it typically forages from the forest understorey to below the canopy, but in the west of its range appears to prefer from the mid-level up.

It takes prey by gleaning, chiseling small holes into wood, and hammering to open arboreal termitaria.

They make a "primary call" or song, a "series of 2‒7 loud ringing whistles at stable pitch and pace: klee-klee-klee-klee."

"The primary threat to this species is accelerating deforestation in the Amazon Basin as land is cleared for cattle ranching and soy production, facilitated by expansion of the road network."

Like the previous taxon it has a large range and an unknown population size believed to be decreasing, but no immediate threats have been identified.