Incredible woodpecker. Long tongue of a woodpecker Get yourself a woodpecker and peck its brains out
Scientists have discovered that the woodpecker's brain constantly produces tau protein, a large amount of which is incompatible with normal life.
Dangerous damage
At the ongoing Olympics in South Korea, professional athletes are demonstrating the skills they have acquired over years of difficult and grueling training. Without a doubt, they are the pride of their countries, but it is athletes who are most susceptible to frequent injuries.
As we know today, repeated injuries are no less dangerous than one-time injuries. This fact is especially evident in the example of brain injury. As the brain continues to be hit hard, tau protein can accumulate in the brain. In normal quantities, it performs an important function in the formation of microtubules in the cytoplasmic structure of cells, but with an excess of tau protein begins to accumulate, turning into an insoluble form. A similar effect is also often found in Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, scientists are interested in studying tau protein.
Woodpeckers became one of the interesting objects of research. Their lifestyle and feeding system involve constant hard work breaking through tree bark with their beak in order to get to their prey. Constantly repeated blows cannot but have an effect on the brain of woodpeckers, because the force of their beak blow is enormous.
American scientists from Massachusetts examined the brains of 10 individuals of woodpeckers from 5 species, as well as blackbirds that do not experience permanent “concussion,” for the purity of the experiment. The birds' brains were cut into small sections and stained with a special solution to detect the presence of tau protein. Analysis under a microscope revealed that the amount of it in the woodpecker brain is quite high, while it was not found in the brain of blackbirds.
Despite the results obtained, there is no data on the presence of any brain damage in the selected individuals. As a result, the question arises: do woodpeckers suffer in the course of their life, or does the tau protein contained in their brain provide them with protection? Further research should answer this question and also help understand the causes of Alzheimer's disease.
Have you seen a woodpecker chiseling a tree? Or at least they heard it. But what happens then? We will tell you in this article how it gets goodies from under the bark and why the woodpecker’s tongue is considered the longest, and most importantly, how this fits in with the theory of step-by-step evolution.
After the woodpecker removes the bark from a tree, drills a hole in it and finds insect passages, it uses its long tongue to retrieve insects and larvae from the depths. Its tongue is capable of extending five times, and it is so thin that it even enters ant passages. The tongue is equipped with nerve endings that determine the type of prey, and glands that secrete a sticky substance, thanks to which insects stick to it like flies to sticky tape.
While the tongue of most birds is attached to the back of the beak and is located in the mouth, the woodpecker's tongue does not grow from the mouth, but from the right nostril! Coming out of the right nostril, the tongue divides into two halves, which cover the entire head and neck and exit through an opening in the beak, where they are united again. Simply amazing! Thus, when a woodpecker is flying and not using its tongue, it is stored curled up in the nostril and under the skin at the back of the neck!
Evolutionists believe that the woodpecker evolved from other birds with a normal tongue that came out of the beak. If the woodpecker's tongue was formed by just random mutations, they would first have to move the woodpecker's tongue into his right nostril and point it backwards, but then he would starve to death! A scenario of step-by-step evolution (through mutation and natural selection) could never have created a woodpecker's tongue, since turning the tongue backwards would not provide the bird with any advantage - the tongue would be completely useless until it made a full circle around the head, returning at the base of the beak.
The unique design of the woodpecker's tongue clearly suggests that it is the result of intelligent design. A step-by-step evolution scenario could never have created a woodpecker's tongue, since turning the tongue backwards would be useless until it had made a full circle around the head, returning to the base of the beak.
Is it really?
It is said that Woodpecker Design is an absolutely insoluble problem for those who believe in evolution. How could woodpeckers gradually evolve a system of special shock absorbers? If she hadn’t been there at the very beginning, all the woodpeckers would have blown their brains out long ago. And if there was ever a time when woodpeckers didn’t need to drill holes in trees, they wouldn’t need shock absorbers.
Let's say a woodpecker has a long tongue attached to its right nostril, but it completely lacks a strong beak, neck muscles, shock absorbers, etc. How would a woodpecker use its long tongue if it had no other accessory apparatus? On the other hand, let's say that the bird has all the tools necessary to drill holes in a tree, but does not have a long tongue. He would make holes in the tree, anticipating a delicious meal, but could not reach the insects. The point is that in an irreducibly complex system, nothing can work unless everything works.
For those who believe in woodpecker evolution, the fossil record presents another major problem. There are practically no fossil woodpeckers in the chronicle, so it is impossible to trace in it the supposed gradual development of woodpeckers from simple birds.
Currently, many creationists and creationist organizations have created websites where the woodpecker is presented as an example of an organism that “could not have arisen through evolution.”
In making such a claim, they have presented a large amount of information regarding the anatomy and physiology of the woodpecker, especially pertaining to its amazingly long tongue, that is either distorted or patently false.
The purpose of this site is to offer accurate information to those who might otherwise accept the erroneous claims of creationists at face value.
Woodpeckers (family Picidae) are well-known birds whose unique anatomy allows them to exploit unusual ecological niches. Many species of this family exhibit interesting adaptations that allow them to bore holes in hard, undecayed wood in search of insects and other prey.
The woodpecker's tongue is one of the most fascinating things among these devices. Unlike the human tongue, which is primarily a muscular organ, bird tongues are rigidly supported by a cartilaginous-bone skeleton called the hyoid apparatus. All higher vertebrates have some form of hyoid; you can feel the "horns" of your own U-shaped hyoid bone by squeezing the top of your throat between your thumb and index finger. Our hyoid serves as an attachment site for some of the muscles in our throat and tongue.
The Y-shaped hyoid apparatus of birds, however, extends right to the very tip of their tongue. The fork in the “Y” is located just in front of the throat, and it is in this area that most of the hyoid muscles attach. Two long structures, the “horns” of the hyoid, grow posterior to this area and form attachment sites for the protractor muscles that originate on the mandible. The hyoid “horns” of some species of woodpeckers have a very impressive structure, since they can extend to the crown of the head, and in some species they extend around the eye socket or even extend into the nasal cavity.
The unusual appearance of the woodpecker's "tongue skeleton" has inspired creationists to use it as an example of a structure too bizarre to have evolved through random mutations that produced viable intermediates. However, as the information below shows, the strange language of woodpeckers is really just a lengthened version of the same thing that all birds have, in fact providing an excellent example of how anatomical features can be transformed into new forms by mutation and natural selection.
Several creationist sites and articles I have reviewed make the claim that the woodpecker's tongue is "anchored in the right nostril" or "grows backward" from the nasal cavity. The original connections between the woodpecker's hyoid apparatus and the rest of its body are muscles and ligaments , which attach the hyoid to the bone of the lower jaw, the cartilage of the throat and the base (not the top) of the skull - the same state of affairs as in all other birds. In adults of several species, the hyoid's horns may eventually grow forward and grow into the nasal cavity from above - but the hyoid and tongue, of course, do not grow FROM the nasal cavity.
Figure 3a: Jawbone and hyoid apparatus of the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus)
Figure 3b: Hyoid apparatus and associated musculature and internal organs of the Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus)
Compare with chicken hyoid (see above). Also note the branchiomandibular muscles (Mbm), which wrap around the hyoid horns and attach to the jaw. The attachment features of the avoc-billed woodpecker are the same, but the horns and Mbm muscles are longer
The bird's tongue itself covers the anterior part of the hyoid apparatus - its posterior parts, including the hyoid horns, function as supporting structures.
The length of the hyoid horns varies very slightly in different birds, but they are all very similar functionally. The domestic chicken (figure a) is a well-studied example of a bird that is not closely related to the woodpecker, but still shares all the essential features of the woodpecker hyoid (figure b).
The hen's hyoid horns and the sheath of ligaments in which they are contained (fascia vaginalis - Fvg) extend back along either side of the throat, then curve behind the hen's ears towards the back of the head (Figure 3a).
The sheath itself is formed from a sac of lubricating fluid into which the horns grow as they develop. This lubricant gives the horns some freedom to slide forward or backward on the sheath when the tongue is protruded or retracted into the oral cavity. There are several elastic ligaments between the case and the horns, but they, of course, are not “tightly” attached to the skull.
Note the insertions of the branchiomandibular muscles (labeled "Mbm"), which insert near the ends of the hyoid horns, extend along the "sheath" and insert into the middle of the jawbone (insertion sites labeled "Mbma" and "Mbmp"). These are the muscles that move the horns down the sheath, pressing them against the skull and thereby pulling the bird’s hard tongue forward.
Thus, the paired hyoid horns of the bird serve only as an attachment point for muscles that actually begin on the lower jaw - the contraction of these muscles pulls the horns and the entire hyoid apparatus forward and outward relative to the skull, pushing the tongue out of the mouth like a spear.
Once this concept is understood, it becomes obvious that elongation of the hyoid horns and the muscles attached [to them], without any other change in general structure or function, would be guaranteed to give the bird a longer tongue and enable it to project this tongue further from the mouth. In fact, this is exactly what happens as a young woodpecker matures.
Figure 4: Scheme of the structure of the skull and hyoid apparatus of short-tongued (left) and long-tongued (right) woodpeckers. The red-brown stripes show the action of the branchiomandibular muscle (Mbm) during tongue extension. The attachments of the Mbm to the hyoid horns and mandibular bone are shown in purple. Compare with the insertions of "mbm", "mbma" and "mbmp" in Figure 3. Green arrows show the direction of movement of the hyoid horns during Mbm contraction.
When the avoc-billed woodpecker has just hatched from the egg, its hyoid horns extend only beyond its ear openings, like those of a hen. As it grows, the case, horns and muscles become longer, curving forward over the head and reaching into the nasal cavity.
In birds with longer horns, the horns are most relaxed at rest, and the contraction of Mbm straightens and presses them tightly against the skull when the tongue is extended. Thus, tip sliding may be minimal in some species (see Figure 4).
Compare the horns of the chicken hyoid (Fig. 3) and the adult avoc-billed woodpecker (Fig. 4, 5.1). Note that although the Avocet's horns are much longer, they each contain two bones (ceratobranchiale and epibranchiale) and one tiny joint with a piece of cartilage at the tip of the upperbranchial bone - just like a chicken's. There are a few other minor morphological differences, such as the presence of a urohyale (UH) in the chicken, but the complete correspondence is clear.
As discussed earlier, the hyoid horns of the chick of the Avocet-billed Woodpecker (and other long-tongued woodpeckers) are quite short (see Figure 5.2) and are comparable to those of short-tongued species of woodpeckers such as the suckling woodpecker (Figure 5.3), which in turn have hyoid horns the horns are no larger than those of many songbirds.
Is the woodpecker the result of intelligent design?
Figure 5:
1. Hyoid of the avoc-billed woodpecker (Colaptes auratus) (adult)
2. Hyoid of the avoc-billed woodpecker (Colaptes auratus) (recently hatched)
3. Hyoid red-capped woodpecker (Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis) (adult)
Only as they grow older do the hyoid horns of the avoc-billed woodpecker grow to the crown of the head, then forward and into the nasal cavity, where the sheath connects with the nasal septum. This makes adaptive sense, since the young Avocet-billed Woodpecker is fed by its parents, and a long tongue would only get in the way.
The genetic changes required for such modification are quite small. No new structures are required, just a longer period of growth to lengthen existing structures. It is likely that in the ancestral species of woodpecker, which began to search for beetle larvae deeper in the wood, woodpeckers with mutations that led to an increase in the size of the hyoid horns turned out to be more adaptable, because they could stick out their tongues further, getting to the prey. Some woodpeckers had no need for a long tongue at all, and so genes were selected that shortened the hyoid's horns. The suckling woodpecker (2), for example, bores narrow holes in trees and then uses its short tongue to feed on the sap that flows onto the surface of the trunk (and the insects that stick to it).
Different species of woodpeckers have many other interesting adaptations. Some species, for example, have modified articulations between certain bones in the skull and upper jaw, as well as muscles that contract to absorb shock when chiseling wood. A strong neck and tail feather muscles, as well as a chisel-shaped beak, are other gouging adaptations observed in some species. The same creationist sources that provide inaccurate information about language often argue that the significant number of adaptations found in woodpeckers argues against evolution. They claim that all these devices must have arisen “at the same time,” otherwise they would all be useless. Of course, this kind of argument ignores the fact that many species of living woodpeckers do not possess such adaptations, or do not possess them fully.
The avoc-billed woodpecker, for example, uses its long tongue primarily to snatch prey on the ground or from under loose bark. It has few shock-absorbing devices and prefers to feed on the ground or break off pieces of rotten wood and bark; this is a behavioral feature observed in birds not belonging to the woodpecker family. A “sequential chain” based on the structure of the skull, from low to highly specialized for chiseling wood, is observed in various genera (groups of related species) of living woodpeckers. In his classic work, The Birds of America, John James Audubon describes the slight degrees of variation in the length of the hyoid horns found among the various species of living woodpeckers.
Woodpeckers and woodpeckers, members of the woodpecker family that look like a cross between songbirds and woodpeckers, have many adaptations similar to those of woodpeckers, such as long tongues. However, they do not have hard tail feathers and some other features of specialization for chiseling wood. They are thought to be similar to the ancestral forms of today's specialized woodpeckers.
Let me remind you of the characteristics of woodpeckers:
1. Due to enormous energy consumption, the woodpecker is constantly hungry. For example, the black woodpecker (native to North America) can eat 900 beetle larvae or 1,000 ants in one sitting; The green woodpecker eats up to 2,000 ants per day. This truly ravenous appetite has a purpose: woodpeckers play an important role in insect control and help limit the spread of tree diseases by eliminating disease vectors. Thus, the woodpecker bird helps preserve forests.
2. A woodpecker is capable of striking a tree at a speed of 20–25 times per second (which is almost twice the speed of a machine gun) 8000–12000 times a day!
3. When this bird strikes a tree, it uses incredible force. If the same force were applied to the skull of any other bird, its brain would quickly turn to mush. Moreover, if a person hit his head on a tree with the same force, he, even if he survived the concussion, would have suffered a very serious brain injury. However, a number of physiological features of the woodpecker’s structure prevent all these tragedies.
4. When a woodpecker drums on a tree at a speed of up to 22 times per second, its head experiences overloads reaching 1000 g (a person would be “knocked out” already at 80–100 g). How do woodpeckers manage to withstand such pressure? David Youhans writes:
“Every time a woodpecker hits a tree, its head experiences a stress equal to 1,000 times the force of gravity. This is more than 250 times the stress experienced by an astronaut during a rocket launch... In most birds, the beak bones are connected to the bones of the skull, the bone surrounding the brain. But in woodpeckers, the skull and beak are separated from each other by sponge-like tissue. It is this “cushion” that takes the brunt of the blow every time the woodpecker’s beak plunges into a tree. The woodpecker shock absorber works so well that, according to scientists, man has not yet come up with anything better.”
In addition, both the beak and the woodpecker’s brain itself are surrounded by a special pillow that softens the blows.
5. During “drilling”, the woodpecker’s head moves at a speed more than twice the speed of the bullet when fired. At this speed, any blow delivered at even a slight angle would simply rupture the bird's brain. However, the woodpecker's neck muscles are so well coordinated that its head and beak move synchronously in an absolutely straight line. Moreover, the blow is absorbed by special muscles of the head, which pull the woodpecker's skull away from its beak every time it makes a blow.
6. The woodpecker has an extremely strong beak, which most other birds do not have. Its beak is strong enough to forcefully enter a tree without folding like an accordion. After all, a woodpecker knocks on wood with it at a speed of about 1000 blows per minute (almost twice the speed of a combat machine gun), and its speed at the moment of impact is up to 2000 km per hour.
7. The tip of the woodpecker's beak is shaped like a chisel, and like a chisel, it is capable of penetrating the hardest wood. However, unlike construction tools, they never need to be sharpened!
8. Two toes on the woodpecker’s foot are directed forward, and two are directed back. It is this structure that helps it easily move up, down and around tree trunks (most birds have three fingers pointing forward and one back). In addition, the suspension system, which includes leg tendons and muscles, sharp claws and stiff tail feathers tipped with spines for support, allows the woodpecker to absorb the force of lightning-fast repeated blows.
9. When a woodpecker knocks on a tree at a speed of up to 20 times per second, its eyelids close each time an instant before the moment its beak approaches its target. This is a kind of mechanism for protecting the eyes from splinters. Closed eyelids also hold the eyes in place and prevent them from flying out.
10. In a recent study, scientists from the University of California at Berkeley discovered four anti-shock benefits of woodpeckers:
“Hard but elastic beak; a sinewy, springy structure (hyoid, or hyoid bone) that spans the entire skull and supports the tongue; area of cancellous bone in the head; a way of interaction between the skull and cerebrospinal fluid that suppresses vibration.” The woodpecker’s shock absorption system is not based on one factor, but is the result of the combined action of several interdependent structures.
When working with their beaks, woodpeckers experience overloads from 1200 to 1400 g. It was previously believed that due to evolutionary adaptation, this bird is immune to traumatic brain injuries. It is because of this feature that his model of “working with the head” used in the development of sports equipment such as football helmets. However, new research from Boston University shows that woodpeckers' brains contain accumulations of tau protein, a protein associated with brain damage in humans.
Feathered worker
Recent Study argues that the brains of poor woodpeckers, just like humans, show the chemical signatures of a concussion.We have all been familiar with this feathered forest worker since childhood. From morning to evening in the forest (and even in residential areas of large cities) you can hear the ringing “ trrrrrrr” - this is a small woodpecker getting its food. With its cone-shaped beak, it makes a hole in the bark, and with its tongue it takes out insects, which form the basis of its diet in the warm season. In winter, this bird feeds on seeds - the woodpecker finds a cone of a coniferous tree, clamps it between the branches of the tree, and breaks it with its beak, getting to the seeds.
It would be logical to assume that since this bird is able to bang its head against a tree all day, then Mother Nature has endowed its brain with protection from concussions and bruises. It’s funny, but until recently, no one even thought of checking the woodpecker’s brain for characteristic damage. A recent study conducted by the Department of Medicine Boston University says the brains of poor woodpeckers, just like humans, show the chemical signatures of concussion.
The study compared the brains of the downy woodpecker and the red-shouldered woodpecker (which doesn't need to bang its beak on wood to get its lunch) for tau protein accumulation.
Anti-shock woodpecker
As you know, the main cells of the brain are neurons, which are cell bodies, and axons are “telephone lines” through which neurons communicate. These “phone lines” are coated with tau protein, providing them with protection and stability while maintaining their flexibility. In moderate amounts, tau protein can be useful for stabilizing brain cells, but the accumulation of too much of the protein in axons can disrupt communication between two neurons. When a person's brain is damaged, tau protein accumulates and impairs nerve function, affecting cognitive, emotional, and motor functions.
A buildup of tau protein may be a sign of brain damage in humans - but is it a sign of a similar affliction in woodpeckers?
According to the collected data, the brains of woodpeckers have much larger accumulations tau protein than the brains of red-shouldered corpses. On the other hand, excessive accumulation of this protein may be a sign of brain damage in humans - but is it a sign of a similar affliction in woodpeckers? Scientists do not yet know the answer to this question.
The very first woodpeckers appeared 25 million years ago - these birds have been knocking with their beaks for a very long time. If this lifestyle causes concussions and bruises, why do woodpeckers still do it? Is it possible that over such a long period of time the brains of these birds have not adapted to the method of obtaining food? The researchers suggest that the accumulation of tau protein in woodpecker axons may not be a pathology, but a protective reaction.
Thus, woodpeckers show all the signs of what appears to be brain damage in humans, but most likely do not suffer from traumatic brain injuries.
MOSCOW, February 2 - RIA Novosti. Scientists have debunked the myth that woodpeckers are “invulnerable” to the stress of chiselling trees by finding chemical traces of concussions in the heads of several birds, according to a paper published in the journal PLoS One.
Scientists have discovered why woodpeckers don't get headachesChinese scientists filmed woodpeckers with a high-speed camera, created a three-dimensional model of their head and conducted virtual “crash tests” with it, and also examined the microstructure of the skull bones to understand how these birds can endure 12 thousand overload head impacts daily without harm. 1 thousand times higher than the acceleration of free fall.“There are dozens of construction and sports gadgets built on the same principles as the skulls of woodpeckers, which, as colleagues believed, never suffer from brain injuries. For some reason, it never occurred to anyone to look inside the skull of the woodpecker itself and check whether there is “Are there any signs of concussions or other damage,” says Peter Cummings from Boston University (USA).
Every person who has ever visited the forest is well acquainted with the sound of woodpeckers and how they get their food. Scientists and ordinary people have long been interested in a simple question - how these birds manage to avoid destruction of the beak, retinal detachment and other injuries that they must receive by striking a tree trunk with enormous force.
In recent years, several dozen scientific papers have appeared explaining how the skull bones of woodpeckers can withstand overloads thousands of times greater than the acceleration of free fall without collapsing. Some of them were even awarded a parody Ig Nobel Prize. However, the minds of scientists are still tormented by the same question - how do woodpeckers avoid concussions and brain damage?
According to Cummings and his colleagues, this question doesn't make sense because woodpeckers don't actually have that kind of invulnerability. They came to this conclusion by studying the brain structure and chemical composition of several woodpeckers, whose bodies preserved in alcohol were kept in two different museums in the city.
As scientists explain, a concussion or any other serious injury to the brain usually leads to the so-called tau protein beginning to accumulate inside it. This substance accumulates in and around nerve endings and helps stabilize them, which protects the nerve tissue from further damage, but sometimes leads to the development of even more serious pathologies.
Accordingly, if woodpeckers really do not damage their brains when getting food, then their body should contain minimal amounts of this protein, and it will be distributed throughout the nervous tissue in a fairly random and uniform manner.
As experiments by Cummings and his team have shown, this is not actually the case. The brains of all woodpeckers contained fairly large amounts of tau protein, and it was more common in those regions of the brain that were adjacent to those parts of the skull that had the highest load.
"The first woodpeckers appeared on Earth about 25 million years ago. The question arises - how did they manage to live for so long if their style of obtaining food is not safe for their brain? It is possible that their evolution did not stop with the bones of the skull, softening the blow, and the accumulation of large amounts of tau protein protects, rather than damages, their brains, as occurs when concussions occur in other living creatures,” Cummings concludes.
A woodpecker makes about 12 thousand head blows a day, without causing any harm to itself! This amazing fact defied any explanation, because this creates an overload 1 thousand times greater than during free fall.
It has been established that some species of woodpeckers, in the process of chiseling tree bark, are capable of moving their beaks at a speed of almost 25 km/h! At the same time, his head is thrown back with a huge negative acceleration, which is more than twice as large as what astronauts experience at launch! More recently, a group of scientists from China were able to answer the question: “Why doesn’t a woodpecker have a headache?”
It turns out that the woodpecker has several unique abilities and an interesting head structure.
For the first time, two American scientists, Ivan Schwob from the University of California at Davis and Philip May from the University of California at Los Angeles, who in 2006 received a Ignobelevskaya prize (this is a prize that scientists receive for “discoveries that first cause only laughter, and then make you think.”
By the way. In the world of science, this prize is no less popular than the Nobel Prize).
Biologists have studied this mechanism using the example of the golden-fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons), which lives in the forests of the United States, but believe that, apparently, such a security system is characteristic of all representatives of woodpeckers (Piciformes).
So why doesn't a woodpecker get a concussion? Firstly, because its super-hard beak hits the trunk strictly perpendicular to the surface of the latter, does not bend or vibrate from the impact. This is ensured by the coordinated work of the neck muscles - during “chipping” work, only those muscles that are responsible for moving the head back and forth are active, and those that carry out lateral movements of the neck are inactive. That is, the woodpecker physically cannot deviate from the chosen course.
In addition, only a thin layer of intracranial fluid separates the bird's skull from its brain, which does not allow the vibrations to gain enough strength to have a dangerous effect on the brain. In addition, this liquid is quite viscous, so it immediately extinguishes all waves arising from the impact that can damage the most important nerve center.
Also important in protecting the brain from concussions is the hyoid, the most important element of the hyoid bone of birds, which itself is more cartilage than real bone tissue. In woodpeckers it is extremely developed, very extensive and extended, located not only in the pharynx (as in mammals), but also extends into the nasopharynx, first wrapping around the skull. That is, inside the skull of this bird there is an additional elastic shock absorber.
In addition, as a study of the internal structure of the woodpecker's cranial bones has shown, almost all of them contain spongy porous tissue, which is an additional shock absorber. In this respect, the woodpecker's skull is more similar to that of a chick than of an adult bird (in which the proportion of spongy matter in the bones is extremely small). So those vibrations that could not be “damped” by the cranial fluid and hyoid are “calmed” by the spongy substance of the bones.
Red-headed Woodpecker
In addition, the woodpecker also has a kind of “safety belt” for the eyes - during a strike, the third eyelid (nictitating membrane) falls over the eye of this bird to protect the eyeball from vibration and prevent retinal detachment. So the vision of woodpeckers, despite their “hollow” lifestyle, is always fine.
And, of course, in order to fit all these security systems into the skull, woodpeckers had to significantly reduce the surface of their brain. However, this did not make them any more stupid than other birds - on the contrary, the woodpecker is very smart and has quite complex territorial and nesting behavior. The fact is that, unlike mammals, in birds the processes of higher rational activity do not occur in the cerebral cortex at all, but in the underlying striatal corpuscles and a layer called hyperstriatum. And these parts of the brain initially do not occupy a very large area, because the neurons in them are quite densely packed. Therefore, a woodpecker can easily shrink its brain without harming its intelligence.
Golden Avoceted Woodpecker
So, what can this smart bird teach people? Yes, at least how to develop perfect shockproof structures. Similar work was recently done by American scientists from the Bioengineering Laboratory at the University of Berkeley. Careful study of time-lapse video footage of the woodpeckers' chiselling behavior and tomography data allowed them to develop an artificial damping (i.e., safety) system similar to that of woodpeckers.
The role of a super-hard beak in an artificial damper can be played by a durable outer shell - for example, steel or titanium. The function of intracranial fluid in this device is taken over by the second, inner layer of metal, separated from the outer, steel, by an elastic layer. Under it there is a layer of hard, but at the same time elastic rubber - an analogue of hyoid. And the “substitute” for spongy structures is to fill the entire empty volume under this rubber with tightly packed glass beads about one millimeter in size. It has been proven that they very effectively “spray” the impact energy and block the transmission of dangerous vibrations to the most valuable central part, for the sake of which all these systems exist - that is, a certain “brain”.
Green ("gray-haired") woodpecker
Such a damper, according to the developers, can protect various fragile structures, for example, electronics, from strong impacts. You can place “black boxes” of aircraft, on-board computers of ships in such a shell, or use it in the development of new generation ejection devices. It is possible that this shell can also be used in a car body as an additional damper.
After creating a miniature prototype, the researchers conducted the first tests of this shell. They placed it in a bullet and used a gas gun to shoot it into a thick sheet of aluminum. The overload from the impact reached 60,000 g, but the damper effectively protected the electronic filling hidden in it. This means that this system works quite effectively. Now developers are working on creating the same damper in larger sizes.
Chinese scientists have studied the woodpecker's protection from shock and vibration, which, in their opinion, can help create new anti-shock materials and structures that can be used in various fields of human activity. Engineers at the State Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment at Dalian University discovered that the woodpecker's entire body works as an excellent shock-proof mechanism, absorbing impact energy.
The bird pecks at a tree with a very high frequency (about 25 Hertz) and speed (about seven meters per second), which is 1000 times greater than the earth's gravity. Scientists made a special 3D computer model using tomograms to understand exactly how the woodpecker protects its brain from damage.
Scientists have found that most of the impact energy is accumulated by the bird's body (99.7%) and only 0.3% falls on the woodpecker's head. Part of the impact energy is absorbed by the bird's beak, and another part by the bird's hyoid bone. And that small part of the energy that still falls on the woodpecker’s head is converted into heat, which is why the temperature of the brain increases greatly.
The bird is forced to take breaks between pecking at the tree in order to reduce this temperature.
