People living in cities rarely see wildlife. But when you go on an outing, into the fields and woods, you may encounter small wild animals such as hares and hedgehogs, as well as the main character of this article, the woodpecker.
There are more than 200 species of woodpeckers in the world, of which 29 species are distributed in China, the most common of which are green woodpeckers and spotted woodpeckers (also known as large spotted woodpeckers). Take the large spotted woodpecker as an example, its body shape is small, the upper body plumage is black with white spots on the background, mostly on the wings, the lower body is brownish white, the lower part of the tail is red, and the back of the male's head is also red.
▷ Large spotted woodpecker
The woodpecker is most impressed by its long pointed beak and superb insect catching skills, which are explained below.
Forest Doctor, superb scratching stunt
Woodpeckers are endowed with superb insect catching skills and are known as "forest doctors" because most of them feed on tree pests, and a single woodpecker can eat thousands of insects a day. They use sharp, slender beaks to beat the trunk for examination, and as soon as they find a pest or disease, they will immediately perform "surgery" on the tree, puncturing the bark and trunk with a pointed mouth, pecking through the wormhole, and then hooking out all the pests (including eggs) with mucus and barbs to eat them.
▷ The large spotted woodpecker who is catching a woodpecker
If some bugs are hiding deep in the trunk, the woodpecker will continue to strike somewhere in the trunk, making a frightening sound that frightens the insects, causing them to panic and be eaten when they climb near the hole that the woodpecker has chiseled.
But the woodpecker is a very persistent bird, and will not let go of the pests in the trees without encountering predators. Someone abroad once took a somewhat exaggerated and funny video: a woodpecker in order to eat the insects in the tree, the trunk of the tree "tuk tuk" electric drill operation. Although this forest doctor was dedicated, the trunk of this poor tree was pecked off by it in half!
▷ The tree's inner cry is close to collapse: Did I meet a quack doctor!??
Some woodpeckers also suck on sap that is more sugary in the trunk, and there is even a species that feeds on tree sap (of course, this is not worthy of being called a "doctor").
A unique bio-drilling rig
You may wonder why woodpeckers can drill holes in hard trunks with just one mouth, in order to make a hole in a tree, in order to make a hammer and a chisel, and to make a hole in a tree. This is because the woodpecker is designed for chiseling wood to catch insects!
Let's go to the woodpecker drying equipment session:
✔ The mouth (beak) is long and hard, like a chisel for carpentry
✔ The tongue is very long, can extend the beak out of the outside of 10 to 14 cm, the tip of the tongue has mucus and rows of barbs, can efficiently hook out wormhole bugs
▷ Woodpecker's extra-long tongue
✔ Slit-shaped nostrils covered with fine hairs effectively prevent the ingress of dust and wood chips from being drilled
✔ The eye's instantaneous membrane is thicker to prevent wood chips from piercing the eye and prevent the eyeballs from popping out
✔ Strong neck muscles allow the beak to hit the trunk at high speed
✔ The tail feathers are very hard and support and immobilize the body when drilling holes
✔ The claws are powerful, generally two toes forward, two toes backwards, can tightly grasp the vertical trunk
▷ The claws of a woodpecker
The woodpecker when drilling is exactly like a percussion drill, which can hit the wood at a speed of about 15 clicks per second, and the "rate of fire" is almost twice that of the submachine gun! And its impact speed is extremely fast, some even exceed the speed of sound 1, faster than most pistol bullets!
Therefore, the deceleration force after each bird's beak hitting the wood at high speed reaches 1200 times the gravity! The heads of any other animal can't withstand such an impact, and if we humans do it like a woodpecker, just one impact will cause severe brain damage or even immediate death! But woodpeckers are not at all uncomfortable, because they also have a very luxurious set of shock absorption equipment.
▷ Woodpecker drilling holes
Fully decipher woodpecker's luxurious shock-absorbing equipment
In order to prevent "work injuries" caused by woodpeckering, in addition to the extremely standardized safety operation (the beak tip and head are always in a straight line to impact the wood, so as to minimize the damage), the woodpecker comes with its own unique labor protection equipment, including at least:
Luxurious shock absorbing equipment includes:
1. Shock absorbing chisel (beak): The skull and beak are connected by cartilage to absorb the impact force.
2. Cushioning helmet (skull): The skull is very strong, with a layer of woolly bones around the brain, which acts as a buffer.
3. Solid brain: The brain has almost no room to move, which can reduce the impact damage caused by the brain shaking inside the skull, and there is a tough protective film on the outside of the brain.
4. Strong eyeballs: Comes with shock absorption function to prevent retinal bleeding or detachment.
5. Shock-absorbing muscles: The muscles on the sides of the neck and head are quite developed and can absorb the vibrations of the head.
6. Shock absorption seat belt (tongue): The most wonderful thing is the extra long tongue, which passes through the upper jaw, grows into the right nostril (leaving only the left nostril to breathe), and then splits into two, bypasses the back of the head, passes through the sides of the neck, and finally returns to the beak to penetrate from the lower palate, so that after a large circle around the skull, it can also extend the beak out of the outside of the beak for more than ten centimeters!
▷ Woodpecker's unique tongue that surrounds the skull
This strange "cranial tongue" is very important for woodpeckers, it can fix the various organs of the head, absorb vibrations, but also significantly increase the natural frequency of head vibrations, to prevent the head and the frequency of woodpecker resonance, because if resonance occurs, it will cause greater vibration effects, thereby damaging the head. 2
Tracing back to the source, where did the full set of luxury clothes come from
Engineers modeled on woodpecker's shock-absorbing structure to develop highly efficient shock absorption devices and helmets, and many evolutionists (including Darwin) sincerely lamented the "magic of nature" to produce this incredible creature.
▷ The Science and Technology Museum exhibited a helmet that simulates the construction and development of a woodpecker skull
But in fact, according to the evolutionary theory of "blind random mutation + natural selection", this equipment of the forest doctor cannot evolve:
First of all, how does the long tongue evolve? Evolution says that each generation gradually lengthens. But imagine how the tongue that "evolved" to 70% fits in?
Flicking around outside the beak? It will be clipped when pecking wood! Hidden inside the beak? Can't close the mouth, can't peck wood, and will be choked to death by the tongue... Growing into the nostrils and around the back of the head like today's woodpeckers? But it is not long enough to go back to the mouth, that is equivalent to no tongue, how to catch the bugs in the hole?
▷ How did the long tongue of a woodpecker come about?
Second, how is the passage of the tongue in the skull formed? It passes through the mouth, the nasal cavity, and the entire skull, and if formed by "blind random mutations," it is equivalent to letting a drunken blind man drill holes in the skull of life and death at will, and the bird will undoubtedly die. In addition, as mentioned in the first point, if there is only a long tongue and there are no such channels, the bird will also die.
Third, how to evolve shock absorption equipment? If the "ancestor of the woodpecker" drilled a hole without equipment, it would immediately go crazy and be eliminated. According to the evolutionary imagination, suppose that the "ancestors" advanced 5% of the equipment and woodpecker habits, then could only drill a few millimeters of depression in the bark but could not eat bugs, wasted physical strength and risked concussion but in exchange for hunger, which would make it eliminated by natural selection.
Fourth, even if it is imagined that all the shock-absorbing equipment of the "ancestors" has "evolved", it still cannot peck at the wood without the simultaneous existence of body structures such as a sharp hard beak, a long tongue, strong muscles, x-shaped claws, hard tails, narrow nostrils, protective eyes, and skills such as "knocking wood to diagnose insects" and "safe operation". Therefore, the equipment and skills of this whole body must be possessed at the same time, and the "forest doctor" can be employed
At the same time, there is no evidence in the fossil record to support the story of a "simple bird" that gradually evolved into a bird with woodpecker characteristics. So the woodpecker is clearly not the result of evolutionary blindness, but a masterpiece of God's wisdom design and creation!
▷ Woodpecker: God's masterpiece, Angelica glory with Him