Scientists are now challenging long-held beliefs that woodpeckers are equipped with shock-absorbing skulls to avoid getting concussions while hammering away at trees every day.
For many years, the prevailing theory has been that the structures in and around a woodpecker's skull absorb the shocks that are created during pecking. A biologist at the University of Antwerp, Sam Van Wassenbergh, said that blogs and information panels at zoos all present this theory as fact.
Shock-Absorbing Woodpecker Skulls
However, a new study that analyzed high-speed footage of woodpeckers in action has allowed Van Wassenbergh and her colleagues to challenge the long-held belief. The team of researchers discovered that woodpeckers are not absorbing shocks during pecking and are not likely concussed when they use their heads as hammers.
When a woodpecker slams its beak into a tree, it generates a shock, and if something in the animal's skull was absorbing the shocks before they reached the brain, then on impact, a woodpecker's head would decelerate more slowly compared to its beak, as per the New York Times.
Thinking of this, the researchers analyzed high-speed footage of six woodpeckers, two birds each from three species, hammering away into a tree. The team monitored two points on each bird's beak and one point on its eye to mark the brain's location.
The study found that the eye and the break decelerated at the same time, with the eye decelerating more quickly in some instances. This meant that, at the very least, the woodpecker was not absorbing any shock during pecking.
According to The Atlantic, on top of the finding, if woodpeckers did absorb shocks, it would only lead them to use more energy during pecking. An ornithologist at the University of Connecticut, Margaret Rubega, who was not part of the study, argued that you would not want to use a spring to hammer a nail into wood.
Avoiding Concussions
An engineer at MIT who has studied woodpeckers, Lorna Gibson, said she has always been skeptical of the shock-absorption idea surrounding woodpeckers. She wondered why it was even accepted, saying that the recent study's findings make "intuitive sense."
The findings of the study bring to light a mistake that is prominent in zoological literature, including hummingbirds drinking by using their tongues as straws, cheetahs overheating when hunting, mantis shrimps having a kaleidoscopic rainbow vision, honey badgers following birds to honey, or Komodo dragons killing with bacteria-laden bites.
Some of these popular theories began as assumptions that somehow calcified into received wisdom without anyone actually checking and reviewing them for accuracy. Other theories were straight up fabrications.
A separate team of researchers studied how woodpeckers are able to avoid getting concussions despite striking trees at such high speeds. They theorized that with the size of the animal's head being smaller than a human's, they can withstand forces that are seven times higher than the threshold for people which is 135 g's.
Based on the models, the forces that woodpeckers' brains sustain during pecking are below the danger threshold by a factor of two. Daniel Tobiansky of St. Mary's College of Maryland said that woodpeckers can theoretically hit the tree at higher speeds and it would still not suffer a concussion, Scientific American reported.
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