The woodpecker A woodpecker's tongue is so long that it wraps around its skull to protect its brain while hitting a tree or other hard surfaces. This, combined with other factors like: super-strong neck muscles, spongy bone plates in the skull that act like a football helmet, and a very small amount of cerebrospinal fluid surrounding its brain, all help prevent a woodpecker from rack your brain while pecking with a force of more than 1000g. True to their name, woodpeckers hammer away at wood with their beaks. And when they do, they can experience forces of 1,200 to 1,400 g’s (g-force = the force of acceleration). In contrast, a force of 60-100 g’s can give a human a concussion. The astonishing fact that a woodpecker can undergo fourteen times that without getting hurt has led helmet makers to model their designs on these birds’ skulls.