Scientists say they have discovered why a woodpecker's beak doesn't get stuck when it drills into a tree. They took high-speed videos of two black woodpeckers (Dryocopus martius) pecking away at hardwood trunks and analyzed them frame by frame. The bird's secret: Once the bill hits the wood, its head rotates slightly to the side, and the top part of the beak moves independently from the skull. This action creates space between the beak tip and the wood inside the hole, allowing the bird to easily retract its beak, the team reported last week at the virtual annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Until now, scientists thought woodpecker bills would need to be rigidly attached to the skull.
Science 15 Jan 2021:
Vol. 371, Issue 6526, pp. 216-217
Science 15 Jan 2021:
Vol. 371, Issue 6526, pp. 216-217