Few people have the tenacity of ecologists Peter and Rosemary Grant, willing to spend part of each year since 1973 in a tent on a tiny, barren volcanic island in the Galapagos. Even fewer would have ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Earlier studies on finches established that their beaks adapt to changes in their ecological environments, including habitat loss ...

Biologist have compared the genes of large-beaked Cameroonian finches to those of their smaller-beaked counterparts, found the answer to a 20-year old mystery: 300,000 base pairs, apparently inherited ...

After visiting the Galapagos, Charles Darwin proposed that species who compete for the same, limited food resources tend to diverge from each other to reduce competition. Seed-eating finches have ...

Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had ...

Darwin’s finches are once again making scientists rethink evolutionary history. A genetic analysis of the finches reveals three new species. And the birds’ most iconic adaptation, beak shape, is ...

Carotenoids are the underlying pigment for much of the enormous variety in color found across birds and form the basis for the colors red, yellow, and orange. In a study published in Current Biology, ...

Natural selection can sometimes work one gene at time, a new study of Darwin’s finches suggests. Variants of one gene had a major effect on rapid changes in beak size after a drought, researchers ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The finches that call Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands home are ...

Bridgett vonHoldt is best known for her work with dogs and wolves, so she was surprised when a bird biologist pulled her aside and said, “I really think you can help me solve this problem.” So she ...