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Frame sequence from a high-speed video of a woodpecker pecking (Dryocopus pileatus). Credit: Erica Ortlieb & Robert Shadwick (University of British Columbia) Scientists have long wondered how woodpeckers can repeatedly pound their beaks into tree trunks without damaging their brains. This led to the idea that their skulls should act like shock-absorbing helmets. Now, researchers report in the journal Current Biology on July 14 have disputed this idea, saying that their heads act more like stiff hammers. In fact, their calculations showed that any shock absorbers would hinder the woodpecker’s pecking ability. “By analyzing high-speed videos of three species of woodpeckers, we found that woodpeckers do not absorb shocks from impacting trees,” said Sam Van Wassenbergh of the Universiteit Antwerp, Belgium. Van Wassenbergh and his colleagues first calculated the effects of slowing down during pecking at three woodpecker spec...

Forced to spend their days slamming their tiny skulls into the sides of trees in search of buried pieces, woodpeckers should have developed a trick or two to avoid brain damage. So you would think. A new study of woodpecker biomechanics has cast doubt on speculation that the chisel-headed little bird avoided turning its brains to mush through a fancy shock-absorbing adaptation. On the other hand, his brain may be too small to care. “By analyzing high-speed video of three woodpecker species, we found that woodpeckers do not absorb the shock of impact with trees,” said Sam Van Wassenbergh, a biomechanics researcher from the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Anyone who’s ever seen, or even just heard of, machine gun fire from the woodpecker’s signature beat will appreciate the physics involved. Snapping their heads back and forth at an astonishing 20 times per second, members of some species can experience forces of up to 1400 g. Compare that to the paltry 90 to 1...