Yes that is interesting. Aside from a few sites that have an ax to grind, this woodpecker's tongue is considered remarkable but not outrageously so. Here is a quote from
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wood...odpecker.html:
None of the other sites I found that give the various characteristics of that species of woodpecker bother to mention the tongue as a distinguishing feature, other than its length. This is because the rest of the description you give is "creative elaboration" to make it seem odder than it really is.
What we can read at the above link is that although that woodpecker's tongue is unusual it is no more than an "elongated version of that found in all birds" and has an obviously useful application -- getting insects out of deep holes.
There are many astonishing and unusual life-forms and of course not all of them are well understood. But the ones I've seen promoted by Creationists as refuting evolution usually rely on creative elaborations with a humorous tone in an attempt to make evolution seem silly.
The eye is a one of features presented in the past as being impossible. This has been so thoroughly explained by evolutionists (including examples of the "impossible" intermediate forms) that creationists no longer bring it up. As I hinted at above the mammalian eye is actually kind of a broken design. The nerves that come from the rods and cones project into the eye (!) instead of hanging off the back of it. This can be show to be a result of evolution where the intermediary stages this made sense but we are now stuck with this broken design.
I wonder why all birds didn't evolve into woodpeckers?" Two ways to answer:
1) God likes diversity so he,
2) Put many birds in many different ecological situations so they would adapt in diverse ways.
Not everyone agrees that 1) adds much to the hypothesis but it certainly doesn't detract from it. Nor does 2) make 1) any less viable.
Lots of animals (think insect eating lizards) have sticky or barbed tongues. Not hard to see how that could have evolved.
