I spotted this big beautiful pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) a few weeks ago in Pacific Spirit Park, probing through the rotting bark for ants and other insects. How do these animals not get the worst headaches?

Why don’t woodpeckers pound themselves into brain trauma? From Ask a Biologist:

Woodpeckers are better than hoopoes at varying the path of their pecks. By moving their beaks around more, woodpeckers minimize brain damage in specific areas.

Woodpeckers’ skulls are more flexible because of the plate-like bones. That helps to minimize the damage of all that pecking.

Woodpeckers have a special bone that acts like a seat-belt for its skull. It’s called the hyoid bone, and it wraps all the way around a woodpecker’s skull. Every time the bird pecks, the hyoid acts like a seat-belt for the bird’s skull and the delicate brain it protects.

Even the woodpeckers’ beak helps. A woodpecker’s upper beak is longer than its lower beak, kind of like an overbite. The lower beak is also made of stronger bone to help absorb impact.