A woodpecker is uniquely built to be able to pound its head against trees without hurting its brain in the process, according to an international collaboration of biomechanists from Brown University in Rhode Island and the University of Antwerp in Belgium. 

What to know:

• The rapid-fire pecking of a woodpecker clocks in at 20 times a second as they pound away on trees. Yet, despite the fact this is a rate three times the threshold in humans for concussions, their brains seem to escape unharmed.

• Using tracking points on the heads and beaks of woodpeckers as they hammer at wood, it was observed that the birds aren’t cushioning their blows and their skulls remain stiff, absorbing the same impact as their beaks.

• The size and orientation of the bird’s brain appear to safeguard it against concussion, and it seems their brains contain specialized mechanisms to prevent and repair minor brain trauma.

• Even the strongest of wood pecks left the bird brains with less than 60% of the pressure needed to give a human brain a concussion.

• Woodpeckers’ beaks often get stuck in the wood they are pounding but they break free almost instantly, thanks to a unique beak design that provides independent motion of both the upper and lower beak.

This is a summary of the article “Cranial kinesis facilitates quick retraction of stuck woodpecker beaks” published by the Journal of Experimental Biology. The full article can be found on journals.biologists.com.

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