How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury?
- Written by Joanna McKittrick, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego
Male pileated woodpecker. FotoRequest/Shutterstock.com
Slamming a beak against the trunk of a tree would seem like an activity that would cause headaches, jaw aches and serious neck and brain injuries. Yet woodpeckers can do this 20 times per second and suffer no ill effects.
Woodpeckers are found in forested areas worldwide, except in Australia....