It has a contrasting black and white plumage, a distinctively stubby body and a large wedge-shaped head making it easy to identify while its frequent calling make it easy to detect as it forage for invertebrates under the bark of the slender outer branches of trees.

They move about in pairs or small groups and are often found in mixed-species foraging flocks.

The heart-spotted woodpecker was described in 1832 by the French naturalist René Lesson from a specimen collected from Bago in Myanmar.

[4] The species is now placed in the genus Hemicircus that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William Swainson.

They are found in the Himalayan forests of India, and extend into Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

[13] A subspecies cordatus based on the description by Thomas C. Jerdon from a specimen from the Western Ghats is not considered distinct and the populations differ slightly in plumage colour and vary clinally in size (the northern birds being larger than those closer to the equator).