SQUIGGLE POWER Tiny sutures between grains of protein in the woodpecker beak follow an especially wiggly path that help the beak cope with compressing forces. Long, wavy sutures can resist a compressing force, and woodpecker sutures are at least three times as wavy as toucans’ and chickens’ sutures. The innermost layer of a woodpecker beak, the bone, is less porous than beak bones in chickens and toucans.