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New study finds woodpeckers use their entire bodies to drill wood

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom

Published March 18, 2026 at 12:02 PM EDT

A downy woodpecker climbs up a tree Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, in Milford, Ohio. (Joshua A. Bickel/AP)

Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on July 22, 2026. Click here for that audio.

A new study shows how woodpeckers engage muscles throughout their entire bodies and coordinate their breaths to drill into wood.

Here & Now‘s Scott Tong speaks with Nicholas Antonson, post-doctorate fellow at Brown University’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, and lead author of a paper on this research in Experimental Biology.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.