In accord with AOS-SACC (Proposal 940), each of the monotypic groups is recognized as a separate species: the group Buffy Tuftedcheek (Buffy) Pseudocolaptes lawrencii lawrencii retains the names Buffy Tuftedcheek Pseudocolaptes lawrencii, and the group Buffy Tuftedcheek (Pacific) Pseudocolaptes lawrencii johnsoni becomes Pacific Tuftedcheek Pseudocolaptes johnsoni. This split is based on plumage differences; deep genetic divergence (Derryberry et al. 2011), coupled with indications that Pacific Tuftedcheek may be sister to Streaked Tuftedcheek Pseudocolaptes boissonneautii rather than to Buffy Tuftedcheek (Harvey et al. 2020, Forcina et al. 2021); and vocal differences (Boesman 2016) together with evidence of song discrimination (Freeman and Montgomery 2017).