Feathered Headbangers Do Not Hurt Themselves

The word headbanger is associated with heavy metal music, supposedly because fans became so excited at concerts, they would literally bang their heads on the stage. These jaspers were known to hurt themselves, too. (Some with a grain of sense would go through the motions and make their long hair fly around, so they had to settle for hearing loss from loud music.) You aren't built to do that, old son. However, there's a critter that is built to bang its head.

The Great Black Woodpecker, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1893

Ever heard a woodpecker pecking wood? They may be drumming to communicate, but they use their engineered bird parts to get food. The beak is extra strong, so is the skull, and it has a special sticky tongue to snag the snack that is trying to escape. Before the term irreducible complexity was termed, I was presenting the concept years ago when I discussed the woodpecker in creation science lectures. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

So, why don't they get brain damage like some rock music fans? New research attempts to pay homage to Papa Darwin, but it shows even more evidence that woodpeckers were specially created to do their thing. Another thing they do is refute evolution.

Any one of these adaptations would challenge Darwinian evolution, but all of them together in head-banging bird?

How do you protect your head against 1,400 G’s when your life’s work requires you to bang your head repeatedly to find food in wood? Woodpeckers don’t die of concussions. Surely they must suffer some brain injury, don’t they?

At Live Science, Mindy Waisberger reports on examination of brain tissue in woodpeckers. Three scientists, publishing their results in PLoS One, found the presence of tau protein in the tissue. Since that is often associated with brain injury in humans, they initially thought this shows that woodpeckers do suffer from the repeated pounding to the head. Another possibility, though, is that the tau protein cushions the birds’ brains.

To read the rest, click on "Woodpeckers Have Multiple Protections Against Brain Injury".