Average beak size decreased by 2.5 percent in the next generations of ground finches. The 1983 rains killed off many female cactus finches, causing male cactus finches to interbreed with ground finch ...

There is huge variability in beak size and bite force among songbird species. In the famous Darwin's finches from the Galápagos Islands, for instance, there is a 40-fold difference in bite force ...

Relative to their body size, Large Ground-finches have the strongest bites of all birds. I would never handle one without gloves. Biting hard or singing fast?

Study results found that over the three decades studied, the beak of the Medium Ground-Finch has become smaller. Using the genomes of all the finches on Daphne, the researchers show that this ...

These results may surprise human geneticists, where many genetic variants each are only responsible for a small amount of variation in human height, for instance. Over the three decades studied, the ...

Over the three decades studied, the beak of the Medium Ground-Finch has become smaller. Using the genomes of all the finches on Daphne, the researchers show that this results from genes ...

A Large Ground-finch (Geospiza magnirostris) on Daphne Major, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Credit: Erik Enbody An international team of researchers has released a study on contemporary ...

These beaks, ranging from the huge, broad, and blunt bill of the large ground finch to the petite, narrow bill of the warbler finch, are adapted for distinct diets.

Natural selection had occurred. Since beak size is a genetically heritable trait, the parents passed this on to the next generation. Hence, the young birds also had large beaks.

Another finch uses twigs or cactus spines to dislodge and snack on insects, while another, nicknamed the vampire finch, has evolved an especially sharp beak that allows it to peck at seabirds and ...