
1168: How A Woodpecker Pecks Wood, And How Ants Crown A Queen
If you’ve heard the hammering of a woodpecker in the woods, you might have wondered how the birds can be so forceful. What does it take to whack your head against a tree repeatedly, hard enough to drill a hole? A team of researchers wondered that too and set out to investigate, by putting tiny muscle monitors on eight downy woodpeckers and recording them with high-speed video as they pecked away in the lab.Integrative organismal biologist Nick Antonson, co-author of a report on the work, joins Host Flora Lichtmen to peck away at the mystery.Plus, you can take two ant eggs with the exact same…
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