Woodpeckers show signs of brain damage

[Still Waters]

With woodpeckers, the answer's in the question—true to their name, they peck wood. And when they do, they peck hard—with each peck, the bird undergoes a force of 1,200 to 1,400 g's. By comparison, a measly force of 60-100 g's can give a human a concussion. The fact that a woodpecker can undergo fourteen times that without getting hurt has led helmet makers model their designs around these birds' skulls. However, a new study in PLOS ONE complicates this story by showing that woodpecker brains contain build-ups of a protein associated with brain damage in humans.

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-woodpeckers-brain-bad.html

[Hankenhunter]

Thousands of hits? You might want to bump that up a bit. If the romantic b***** that beats on the top of the power pole by my bedroom to entice females is any indication, he would rattle off a thousand hits in one morning. By the end of mating season he must have one hammer of a headache. 

Hank

[Sundew]

That explains a lot.....

[Hankenhunter]

2 hours ago, Hankenhunter said:

Thousands of hits? You might want to bump that up a bit. If the romantic bird  that beats on the tin covered top of the power pole by my bedroom to entice females is any indication, he would rattle off a thousand hits in one morning. By the end of mating season he must have one hammer of a headache. 

Hank

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Hankenhunter

[Silent Trinity]

I can see some merit perhaps in the research but surely, evolution has made the Woodpecker what it is and they have developed like most other creatures according to their needs, and according to the requirements of their life, therefore I would have thought that they would not have such a violent concussive impact as perhaps a human would who has not developed a need to hammer wood with their heads at high speed. Perhaps any calcified deposits on their brains would therefore actually come from the human impact on their lives, making metal and concrete poles etc that they won't know are not trees until they have given themselves headache trying to hammer through a lamppost etc lol.

I would have thought that if Woodpeckers were damaging their brains we would know about it by now as they staggered around town shouting at traffic and declaring Justin Bieber their one true god lol

[DirtyDocMartens]

As long as they live long enough to reproduce, it doesn't matter what happens to their brains later in their lives. That's how evolution works.

[TripGun]

What is the baseline to measure a birds stupidity? The glass box test? 

[paperdyer]

Hey - let's capture some Woodpecker families that are nesting.  Let the eggs hatch and have the NFL equipment manufacturers fit half of the baby woodpeckers with helmets when they come of age to want wood and run a study to see if the helmets work.  We could save the woodpeckers from extinction and stupidity from brain damage.  If there isn't any brain damage noted either way, then the construction of the woodpecker skull needs to be looked at to help the NFL equipment manufacturers to make better helmets.  Of course all the animal rights people would prevent this study from getting off the ground.