The woodpecker is an example of such an animal. Some evolutionists have realized this, and have thought up another story of how it might have evolved. It gets worse. Its first inch or so was moving foreword, not backward! Set up as a professional lecture, I was surprised that even our 8 year old was fully engaged. Dr. Luther Sunderland, a scientist who is an expert in design engineering, was fascinated by the skeleton of a woodpecker that he found which had recently died out in the woods. In this species, part of the supporting structure of the tongue the hyoid apparatus) encircles the skull in the adult, ending up at the right nostril. Since even a simple organ like a tongue is made up of many many proteins, nerve cells, blood vessels, etc. The unique arrangement of the woodpecker's tongue could not have evolved. The tongue can be protruded and retracted over a long distance with a good control of twists and turns to capture the insects. If, by some miracle, the woodpeckers themselves had not been eliminated, a tongue which had been useless for many generations, would itself have been eliminated. 12, March 1976, p. 183). If the tongue started anchored to the back of the beak, it would require a large sudden change to get to its present configuration. The woodpecker's beak is unlike that of other birds. The birds whose tongue evolution stopped half way and jammed the root back into the bill through the nostril would have been eliminated. The woodpecker's tongue gives strong evidence of design. Only the last step in the evolution of the woodpecker's tongue, when it came back out of the front of the beak again would have had survival value. So the woodpecker's tongue can create glue and later become a barb factory—all arriving at the right time so the bird can survive. When a number of systems must be in place all at once before a thing will work, it is called irreducible complexity and it is an evidence of intelligent design. This theory neglects to mention that for the first inch or so the tongues root had to move in the wrong direction! This would have given a survival disadvantage. Japan, Like most websites we use cookies. Most genetic diseases are examples. Otherwise, as the tongue moved farther back, less and less of the tongue would have even reached the end of the beak, much less extended out of it. 4. Unfortunately, for many the evolutionary faith is a part of a total religious structure into which everything must be jammed whether it fits or not. The bodies of woodpeckers structurally produce strong blows and moderate and diffuse the shocks delivered. The woodpecker would choke if this was the case because his tongue is far too long. The fact that more or less coordinated mutations would have been necessary makes this whole story much less likely. The first woodpecker to evolve the equipment for drilling holes in trees would have quit pounding or died young if the shock absorbers were not already in place. This is all thanks to their distinctive shape which allows them to perch vertically on tree trunks. The woodpecker's bill works like a specialized chisel, capable of slicing right into a tree. Therefore, this kind of mutations would never have been preserved. The woodpecker’s tongue is even more amazing than the headache-proof crash helmet it wears. That is why technicians who work with X-rays protect themselves with lead shields or aprons. Photos and text: Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado, English Translation: Asia Club, WBSJ Volunteer Group (Anna THOMAS & KASE Tomoko). This tongue is a mysterious structure. In humans, the horseshoe-shaped hyoid is an attachment site for certain throat and tongue muscles. Then, not the point end of the tongue, but the root end little by little uprooted itself from its normal attachment in the back of the throat, gradually rerooting itself step by tiny step out through the back of the opening of the bill, and taking root ever farther around the back of the head. Their beaks also have developed an extra protective layer made up of bones and tissues. If a man were trying to catch grubs like a woodpecker, no matter how sharp he kept his chisel, he would not know which direction to go to connect with the tunnels which have grubs in them. Why? Woodpeckers are so uniquely designed for their specific tasks that their amazing features defy evolutionary thinking! Evolution: why does a woodpeckers tongue go around the brain? This evolutionary speculation claims that the woodpecker's tongue evolved from that of a normal bird: rooted back in its throat and extending straight out through the beak like that of other birds. This is an elongated version of tongue of others species of birds. There are 9 species from the subfamily in Japan: they’re well-known birds, as some species can be seen in cities. If you got a cluster of a thousand mutations, and one of them was helpful, hundreds of them would cause genetic diseases, that would wipe out the organism. When I was around four living in America I loved to make my parents laugh by mimicking Woody Woodpecker which was a popular character at the time. The sound and pattern varies by species, but what can be said about all of them is they strike a tree at a high speed in one spot with their beaks. They believe that over millions of years, natural selection has selected the organisms with mutations that add a little to the creature's ability to survive and leave offspring, while those with harmful mutations die. Learn about their one-of-a-kind tongue and shock absorbent skulls! The green woodpecker's tongue is so long that it has to coil behind the skull, over the eyes and into the right nostril just to fit inside the bird's head. Did you know that a woodpeckers tongue is . After a tongue came out through the nostril and headed backwards behind the head it would have given the bird a great survival disadvantage until the moment the tongue and its bones had grown long enough to go all the way around the neck, back into the base of its beak, and extend far enough out the end to reach food. Friends In short, they support their bodies on three points: the claws of each foot and the hard tail. The long tongue of some woodpeckers is an adaptive function that increases with the growth of the bird. Each side of its split tongue is wrapped around the back of its head under the skin when not in use. The ability to peck a hole wouldn’t help if the bird didn’t have a tongue long enough to reach inside. (Encyclopedia Britannica CD 98, "Birds: Major Bird Orders: Piciformes, Form and Function"). The unique complex tongue of the woodpecker is extended by a complex system which includes a very long hyoid (tongue-base) extensible bone- sheathed muscle apparatus which help to control the protrusion and retraction of the tongue. As I greatly appreciate the fascinating evolution of woodpeckers, I want to be mindful to continue keeping an eye on the various fascinating things about the natural world in everyday life. (Luther D. Sunderland, Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. It can be stretched far beyond the tip of the woodpecker's beak as it searches the larval tunnels for food. Circling around behind the head and neck under the loose skin gives the tongue enough extra length so it can shoot out about six inches into Mr. grub's burrow inside a tree trunk! Since this involved bone, joints, blood vessels, and nerves as well as flesh, it would have required many mutations, presumably spread out over millions of years. Errors in copying information don't make better instructions for making more complex beings. After working its way around the neck according to this theory the root jammed itself back into the bill through the nostril. Almost all mutations are harmful, so the organisms which survive are generally those with mutations that just change one amino acid in one protein. There are five bones, thin and flexible In fact, the woodpecker’s tongue is as long as half their body. If it were a simple thing that could happen by small accidental changes, some blacksmith, or metallurgical scientist would have figured out how to make self sharpening steel chisels. One prominent evolutionist on the staff of a prestigious scientific magazine confided after examining it 'There are certain anatomical features which just cannot be explained by gradual mutations over millions of years. This movement is cute and fascinating, but this is the same action as using a tree as a shield to hide when predators like hawks and crows are near. For storage, the tongue is curled around the back of the head between the skull and skin. Furthermore, the base of the long tongue is on the back side of the bird’s head: the bone at the base of the tongue wraps around the skull curving from the jaw to back of the skull to the crown, then to the front of the head and ending at the nasal cavity, functioning almost like a seatbelt. The evolution of their features. This design detail no doubt gives greater accuracy as the woodpecker guides its tongue toward a target grub. This apparently delivers the same impact as a human would get by repeatedly striking a wall at a speed of about 25 kilometers per hour. Woodpeckers' hyoid bones act as additional support structures. To eat the insect that exists in the tree, the woodpecker has a tongue very long in which it can insert it also in a thin space. Back there, the tiny bones divide into essentially two tongues, coming back together before entering the beak. and attach their sheath there, 2 circle behind the head and neck 3, Woodpeckers also have a bone embedded in their tongue that helps to extract insects from the trees. Imagine trying to drill into a hardy tree trunk. The tongue of woodpeckers is even longer than its body, which is actually the longest one that can be found in the bird world. A slight change in the order of the amino acids in a protein will often change a functioning protein into a disease. According to evolutionary theory, any system without a function will be eliminated by natural selection. The information is laid out simply and in a beautifully visual presentation. All the brain protections wouldn’t help if the bird’s feet couldn’t cling to trees, and so on. Tongue that curls. (e.g., woodpeckers and hummingbirds) the horns curve around the skull terminating at the front ... For example, in woodpeckers that extend their tongue the most, it can be anchored at the left nostril or encircle the right eye. The woodpecker’s split tongue is attached to its right nostril. They climb up trees, hunt for insect grubs and such hiding inside trees, and have nests in holes they bore in tree trunks. Both the forward and the backward evolutionary scenario lead to absurdities and to elimination by natural selection. What good would the stiff tail feathers, the specialized toe structure, the grub detector and the grub puller have been even with the wrap around tongue and the shock absorber if after drilling a few holes the beak had gotten dull and wouldn't cut any more? Unlike the tongue of humans, which is primarily mus- cular, the tongue of woodpeckers is supported by a car- tilage-and-bone skeleton covered with a thin tissue layer. The tongue system splits in two, like a Y, exits through a hole in the back of the beak. Response: The woodpecker's tongue (and hyoid apparatus, a rigid cartilage and bone skeleton of the tongue) are unusually long. It … They are born with shorter tongues and with time, their hyoid horns grow up to the top of the head, forward, and into the nasal cavity. Then it worms its tongue into the tunnel to try to locate the grub. The long tongue helps the woodpecker reach insects inside the tree trunk, in addition to helping cushion its brain from its pecking activity. (Figure 26) When the tongue … The woodpecker snakes his tongue in and out of his beak like a snake's tongue. 2.It through the right of hole of the nasal bone. According to the theory of evolution, every step up from a single cell has been caused by gradually accumulating small changes which have come about through errors in copying the information that directs the construction of living things. Why would it do that? However, when I had gotten used to this strange scenario, I could see how it might sound possible to an evolutionist who had so much faith in the theory of evolution that he had to believe that everything had come into being by natural selection acting on accidental mutations. If there is any animal that breaks the rules of evolution in such a way that it could not possibly have evolved, then it would need God as its Creator. Furthermore, the base of the long tongue is on the back side of the bird’s head: the bone at the base of the tongue wraps around the skull curving from the jaw to back of the skull to the crown, then to the front of the head and ending at the nasal cavity, functioning almost like a … The specialized tongue of a woodpecker evolved exactly as one would expect. In some species, the tongue is coated with a sticky substance, used as bait to catch ants. In the top view, the horns of the hyoid extend from near the right nostril across the top of the skull. After a normal bird's tongue had turned around and started growing under the skin toward the back of its head, the tongue would have been completely useless until it had completed the entire circle. all at once? By hammering on a steel chisel, men can cut into trees like the woodpecker does with his bill. This additional structure helps reduce the natural wear and tear of their beaks generated from the friction with the wood. Woodpeckers are so uniquely designed for their specific tasks that their amazing features defy evolutionary thinking! To clarify, I reached out to a local expert at Columbia University, Dr. Walter Bock, who informed me that “The tongue of woodpeckers and its musculature is clearly the same as that in other birds. The toe structure and associated arrangement of tendons and leg muscles form a functional complex of features enabling the woodpecker to climb tree trunks and to maintain its position while pecking the tree." Then it hit me! Woodpeckers are the first example of adaptive evolution by Natural Selection mentioned by Darwin who commented that their' feet, tail, beak and tongue' are ‘so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees’. In addition, compared to other birds: "The tail feathers (especially the central one or two pairs) are stronger in woodpeckers, resisting the wear caused by their use in propping up the bird's body as it hammers with the bill. Why not claim that a big cluster of mutations affected the bone, muscle, nerves, etc. The woodpecker’s tongue also secretes a sticky substance to help pull insects out of a tree and into its beak. There are over 200 species of woodpecker in the world, with most of these belonging to the Picinae subfamily. Glue on the tongue would starve the bird after its first meal if the tongue got stuck inside the mouth. In insisting that God did nothing, and that accidental mutations have produced everything, evolutionists have painted themselves into a corner, with no decent way to account for the origin of any complex organ. The Woodpecker. and come back into the hollow between the two halves of the beak? At the end of the tongue are … Currently there are somewhere around 200 kinds of woodpeckers. The woodpecker's tongue must have come all at once, a product of complex design. The ability to excavate allows woodpeckers to obtain tree sap, an important source of food for some species. The tongue of a woodpecker, often covered with barbs or sticky saliva, can be extended a considerable distance in order to dislodge ants and insect larvae from deep crevices in wood and bark. Learn about their one-of-a-kind tongue and shock absorbent skulls! Their feet have two toes pointing forward and another two pointing backwards, with sharply curved claws, and the four feathers in the center of their tail have very hard, curved shafts. If any of the three had evolved much before the others it would have been of no use, and would not have been selected. Next, consider the woodpecker’s tongue. After that it would have starved to death. Why jump to the conclusion that if mutations cause diabetes, they must also have formed the pancreas, the liver, the fish, the monkey and us? … It is long, but instead of dangling down and getting tangled around branches when it flies, the slack is kept under the loose skin behind its neck. Woodpeckers also produce large amounts of sticky saliva that coats the tongue, enhancing their ability to capture insects. The woodpecker certainly could not have survived any evolutionary plans that man could come up with. The evidence free argument that the woodpecker's tongue became what it is today by migrating root first around the head is self contradictory and logically unsound. with tiny joints.1 What made them exit through the right nostril Just between you and me, I have to get God into the act too sometimes. When woodpeckers search for food or bore holes to make their nests, they peck trees without rhythm and not very loudly, but during breeding season they drum regularly to announce their territory. Dorsal, lateral, and ventral views of the skull of a Hairy Woodpecker. When they notice they’re being watched, they quietly slip behind a tree, peeking out to check what we’re doing. Since the evidence indicates that woodpeckers could not have been developed by random mutations, why should mutations be considered the universal builders of every part of every living being as most evolutionists insist? The woodpecker’s split tongue is attached to its right nostril. The reason they believe these changes take lots of time is that most mutations represent chance changes in the commands to make proteins which are the main ingredients of cells. The beak is flexible, almost straight with a thick base, and the lower beak is shorter than the upper. The tongue and the hyoid have the skull once around. Quite a number of animals have bones that that stiffen the base of the tongue, and this is essentially the purpose of these bones in the woodpecker's tongue (called hyoid bones). When the hole is drilled, the woodpecker uses its extremely long tongue (6 inches or 2.34 cm) to reach inside to get the insects. Evolutionists call it an “adaptation” which means it just happened that way because woodpeckers wanted to eat beetle larvae way inside trees–and were willing to wait a million years or so for their tongues to grow long enough to reach them. The brain is relatively light only at 0.1-0.5 grams, has few wrinkles on its surface and is tightly packed within the skull, making it hard for the brain to move against an impact. woodpecker's head 1.tongue 2.hyoid 3.root 1.The tongue divides into two. Unlike the human tongue which is made up of muscles, the woodpecker's tongue is made up of cartilage and bone skeleton called the hyoid apparatus. Drumming, like calling, is for letting surrounding birds know of their presence, so they use trees that resonate well. A woodpecker sometimes uses its tongue as a spear, penetrating and then dragging insects to the surface, but the bird probably uses it more often as a rake, extending it into holes and then retracting it. Its tongue could not help it catch any food at all for the millions of years that it would take to complete the circle around the back of the head, by changing one amino acid in one protein at a time. God made woodpecker beaks self sharpening. Having hammered a hole into the wood, the prey is extracted by use of a long, barbed tongue. Evolutionists tell us that an organ which goes unused for generation after generation will be eliminated, even if the animals continue to live. For example, the European Green woodpecker’s tongue goes down the throat, out the back of the neck around the back of the skull beneath the skin, and over the top between the eyes, terminating usually just below the eye socket. Otherwise they get more and more dull until they are unusable. Until the woodpecker had obtained the complex mechanism for locating and hitting a tiny grub inside a tiny tunnel inside a great big tree, its specialized tongue would have been of no value. This would, of course requited two completely different types of mutations which were more or less perfectly coordinated: The mutations which moved the root around the head, would have to have been coordinated with those which increased the length of the tongue. But let the evidence be a guide also in cases such as that of the woodpecker where the evidence so strongly indicates intelligent design. The tongue’s adhesive, however, does not prevent the woodpecker from eating. If all of the above systems came into place in an ordinary bird, the impact with the tree would kill it; something like taking driving a steel chisel into a tree with the end of your nose. Evolutionists state that the woodpecker's tongue started out rooted back in the throat, just like other birds because they claim that it evolved from some ordinary bird. To insinuate that evolution was a non-factor is an outright lie. Other birds have hyoid bones also, but it would seem obvious that some sort of miracle would be needed to get them rooted in the right nostril. However, as we chisel, our steel blade becomes dull. Such an evolution is truly interesting. If one of the woodpecker's systems evolved much before the other systems that had to be there for it to function, it would have been eliminated. The woodpecker catches its food with its tongue which has barbs and a bit of glue on the end, so it can pick up grubs hiding in their little tunnels inside a tree. Its bones had been perfectly cleaned off by insects. The tongue of some woodpeckers does not come from its throat up into its mouth like other creatures. The tongue of the woodpecker has evolutionists scratching their heads. If you see someone knocking down a building with a crane equipped with a wrecking ball, you don't assume that all of the world's buildings were constructed by cranes with wrecking balls. Had it survived the first blow, it would probably have quit trying. The evidence is strongly against the woodpecker's special systems having been developed by chance mutations because a number of different systems had to work together. Loosing the tongue's contribution to gathering food would have put the woodpecker at a great disadvantage compared to normal birds in the struggle to survive. 1 to 1.5 times the length of its body? If lengthening the tongue increased the bird's chance of survival, the birds with tongues which continued to lengthen by moving under the skin down to the bird's tummy, tail, or foot, would have been chosen by natural selection. Dr. Sunderland, the owner of the skull in the picture, writes, "The woodpecker's skull has been more effective in convincing scientists of the inadequacies of the evolution theory than perhaps any book in the author's library. What were these strange bones? The mutation scenario, however, could never have evolved a normal bird's tongue into woodpecker's tongue. Most birds have tongues that are fastened to the back of their beak. 4. Woodpeckers are mysterious birds. The woodpecker’s tongue is worth even closer scrutiny. The woodpecker tongue is so long that it must wrap around the inside of its head and its brain when not extended out of its beak. Something or somebody gave the woodpecker's tongue a unique design. The woodpecker’s tongue also secretes a sticky substance to help pull insects out of a tree and into its beak. by Thomas F. Heinze, Answers to my Evolutionist The tongue of the woodpecker is long and ends in a barb. When I was first told about it in an email, it seemed such an impossible suggestion that I was sure that I had not understood, so I kept on asking until it was absolutely clear that it really was what he was saying. If the woodpecker's tongue were not designed, but had formed by chance mutations, only the first mutations which moved its tongue into its right nostril and pointed it backward could have happened. A wood pecker will drill into a tree, then snake out its long, sticky tongue, waiting until the ants, believing it … While I understand the merit of avoiding competition by only using tree trunks that other birds don’t use, I want to ask, “Do you really need to go that far?”. The fact that they are all present and functioning indicates that these various systems were designed and created to work together. The woodpecker's tongue gives strong evidence of being the product of intelligent design and creation, rather than of evolution. Adding two joints and an inch in length, for example, would have added no survival advantage at all as long as it was growing in the wrong direction. If you’re happy with that, just carry on as normal (, Discover the latest ups and downs of the avian world, Major national park expansion for South America’s other big forest, Saving the Gola Forest: reimagining forest conservation in West Africa, Namibian fishery reduces seabird deaths by 98%, Restoring wet meadows to protect the Madagascar pond-heron in Mayotte. June is just the time when these woodpeckers raise their chicks, so it’s important to leave them alone, especially when a nest is nearby. A second amazing feature of woodpeckers is their beak. Read more Fujingaho articles by HIH Princess Takamado, Back to BirdLife's Honorary President home, Asia The woodpecker, however, not only comes equipped with a strong self sharpening beak and a grub detector, but also a marvelous shock absorbing system that protects its head from damage. Of course, everyone wonders why this doesn’t cause a concussion. Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers and Japanese Green Woodpeckers can be seen in city parks as well as in golf courses. Evolutionists surmise that the woodpecker must have evolved from some other bird with a normal tongue that went straight out of the beak. The more you magnify man-made objects, the cruder they look, but the more you magnify God-made objects, the more precise and intricate they appear." Who Designed Woodpeckers? Can evolution explain all of these characteristics? In the woodpecker, however, the fact that the tongue starts out backward and circles around behind the head is exceptional!