Special Woodpecker Adaptations

     All birds have feathers and lay eggs.  And each family of birds has unique traits that demonstrate species in that family evolved from a common ancestor and share characteristics.  Woodpeckers are an example of this, including those here in the Middle Atlantic States.  Woodpeckers have several special adaptations that help them gain a living.
     Woodpeckers get food from the dead wood of trees in a way no other family of birds does, which is their special niche.  And everything about woodpeckers' bodies is built to achieve that end.  They cling to the upright trunks and limbs of trees while chipping into the dead wood after a variety of invertebrates living in the wood.  But they can do that only by having special bodily adaptations. 
     Most birds have three toes in front and one toe in back of each foot so they can walk and perch.  Each toe has a sharp nail for scratching and clinging.  The back toe also keeps the birds from falling backward.  But woodpeckers have two toes in front and two in back like an X.  The two toes in back help brace them upright to tree trunks and branches.  And, of course, the two toes in front help them cling to the dead wood.       
     Woodpeckers also have particularly stiff tail feathers, especially the two in the middle, that help hold the birds upright on the trees while pecking away dead wood to get little critters underneath.  Their tail feathers and toes work together to hold those birds to the trees while chipping away. 
     Woodpeckers have particularly reinforced skulls to protect their brains as they hammer into the dead wood.  Probably, only those birds with harder skulls survived long enough to reproduce, passing along their genes for reinforced skulls.  Woodpeckers that didn't develop harder skulls died before they reproduced themselves. 
     Woodpeckers have long, sticky tongues they push into invertebrate tunnels, after they chipped away the wood, to snare those edibles.  When the tongues are covered with victims, the woodpeckers draw them in and swallow that food. 
     The base of woodpecker tongues are rooted to birds' foreheads at their nostrils.  The tongues, at rest, wrap over the skull, under the skin, and lie in the birds' beaks.  Only woodpeckers have such a tongue arrangement.
     Most woodpecker species are black and white, which camouflages them among the gray bark and shadows of trees.  Flickers, which also are a kind of woodpecker, are mostly brown, which camouflages them on the ground. 
     Flickers get most of their food (mainly ants) from the soil.  They poke their bills into the soil after ant colonies and run their long, sticky tongues into ant tunnels to snare those little insects, and their eggs, larvae and pupae.  This kind of woodpecker, this pioneer, found a different way to get food, reducing competition with its relatives for it.  And the color of its feathering is better suited for life on the ground.         
     These are the adaptations woodpeckers developed to get food in a niche not used by other birds.  And so it is with all families of birds.  They each have special characteristics that enable them to get food from specific niches with reduced competition with other bird families.  This is how the many species of life developed.