Friday, March 29

Woodpeckers damage their brains when they hit trees | Digital Trends Spanish

A false belief is that woodpeckers have almost a skull of iron, because the blows they give to the trees, would leave any mere mortal stunned.

Researchers have long hypothesized that a spongy bone in this bird’s skull cushions its repeated headbutts like a well-designed safety helmet. (In fact, engineers have modeled football helmets and damping electronics after this idea.) But a new analysis shows that the birds may be choosing power over protection.

However, scientists at Brown University, led by Van Wassenbergh, analyzed whether the woodpeckers were really absorbing their blows.

The researchers recorded 109 high-speed videos of six woodpeckers from three species: the black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius), the stacked woodpecker (D. pileatus) and the great-spotted woodpecker (dendrocopos major). By tracking spots on their beaks and heads as the animals pecked at the wood, the scientists found that all the woodpecker skulls stood rigidthat is, their heads stopped slower than their beaks, the team reports in Current Biology.

A simulation based on the recordings showed that adding shock absorption would not actually help protect the birds’ brains. If its head absorbed some of the impact, the bird couldn’t exert as great a force, meaning the woodpecker would peck less wood. To penetrate to the same depth with shock absorption, the birds would have to hit their heads harder, counteracting any built-in protection.

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