Does a woodpecker really wrap its tongue around its brain?

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Why: We saw a beautiful woodpecker pecking wood whilst preparing Bowl Game the other day. Kateloh said woodpeckers wrap their tongues around their brains so they don't jiggle around and get concussed.

Answer: Well, sorta, but that's not why. They do have really tight skulls that hold everything in place. They also have crazy weird tongues. They are sharp and pointed at the tips and have rear-facing barbs that catch and hold food that they find inside the little holes they make in trees. The tongues are long and stretchy, sometimes extending as long as 3 times the length of the beak.

In some, the tongue is so long that it forks in the throat, goes below the base of the jaw, and wraps behind and over the top of the head, where the forks rejoin and insert in the bird's right nostril or around the eye socket. WHAT!

Source: Hilton Pond

The More You Know: This is what Woody Woodpecker looked like in 1941. Nice chompers.