Woodpeckers’ Tiny Brains Protect Them From Concussions, And Good For Them
"A human who headbutted a tree at woodpecker speed would absolutely be concussed."
Woodpeckers — the freaky red-haired bird that literally drills into trees like nature’s equivalent of a jackhammer — have tiny brains, according to science.
Previously, it was thought that the birds had shock-absorbing skulls to handle their aggressive beak drumming, a fun activity they do 12,000 times a day. But the world was wrong!
Woodpeckers somehow avoid concussion by simply having small ass brains. A biologist at the University of Antwerp, Sam Van Wassenbergh, told The New York Times that a shock absorption mechanism would reduce the effectiveness of their continual pecking, and put his hypothesis to the test.
“It would be a waste of precious energy for the birds. Woodpeckers have undergone millions of years of evolution to minimise shock absorption,” he said.
By mapping over slow-mo footage of the bird at work, his team concluded that woodpeckers handle the repeated shock by being petite, and by extension, having petite brains that can bounce back — much like a fly when it hits a glass window.
In a paper published last Thursday, Van Wassenbergh’s team found that the bird’s skull is used as a tool extension — a “stiff hammer to enhance pecking performance, and not as a shock-absorbing system to protect the brain”.
“Numerical simulations of the effect of braincase size and shape on intracranial pressure indicate that the woodpeckers’ brains are still safe below the threshold of concussions known for primate brains,” they explained, complete with the compelling image below.
With each peck, the brain and head simultaneously move forward and back at the same time, with no room for brain whiplash ratting around in the skull. “A human who headbutted a tree at woodpecker speed would absolutely be concussed. But we have extremely large brains — a fact that, ironically, we seem to forget,” paraphrased The Atlantic.
“Woodpeckers have smaller and lighter brains than ours, which greatly reduces the pressure that they experience upon each peck. According to Van Wassenbergh’s calculations, a woodpecker would have to hit a tree at twice its normal speed, or peck something four times stiffer than the average tree, to get a concussion. ”
While Australia, unfortunately, doesn’t have any woodpeckers, Victoria is the site where the Woody Woodpecker sequel is being filmed in December, “bringing back the world famous woodpecker’s signature laugh, wacky antics and wisecracks”, according to the Department of Arts.
That being said, an estimated 15 percent of land birds down under still take advantage of tree hollows — including parrots, cockatoos, owls, lorikeets, kingfishers, woodswallows, and more. The key difference, according to WA Department of Conservation and Land Management is that they are naturally formed cavities through weather and decay, but “wildlife can also renovate hollows using beaks, teeth, or claws”.
Australia joins New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and extreme polar regions in being the only places of the world where no woodpeckers are.
Anyway, here’s a clip of a woodpecker hard at work to be viewed with newfound knowledge of cranial anatomy.
Photo Credit: Van Wassenbergh et al./Current Biology