Drumming woodpeckers use similar brain regions as songbirds
The complex behaviors may have a shared evolutionary origin
![image of a downy woodpecker (gray body, black and white wings, and a red crest) pecking a tree](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/091922_di_woodpecker_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
Downy woodpeckers (Dryobates pubescens) like this one drum rapidly on trees and gutters to compete for territory. A new study has shown that this behavior involves regions in the brain that closely resemble brain regions used by songbirds to learn songs.
Mary Keim/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)