Some bird species are famous. The Dodo bird and Passenger Pigeons became famous because of their abrupt extinctions. The finches found on the Galápagos Islands are famous because they inspired Charles Darwin to formulate his theory of natural selection and wrote about it in his book “On The Origin Of Species” in 1859.
As the story goes, when Darwin visited the Galapagos Island on the HMS Beagle he found that there were differences in the finches he saw on each island. He postulated that the differences were due to the types of vegetation available for the finches to feed on and over time the finches’ bills and bodies adapted to the conditions on that Island. If you would like to read more about this fascinating story about our natural history you can CLICK HERE to read Wikipedia’s entry about Darwin’s Finches.
GBP member Paul Demkovich visited the Galápagos Islands recently and made it a point to locate and photograph as many of Darwin’s Finches as he could. Here are five different ones and the island he found them on.
We begin with a Small Ground Finch he found on Espanola Island.
Compare that one to the Large Ground Finch he found on Genovesa Island. Look at the size of its bill!
This Green Warbler-Finch has recently been classified as a Tanager but it is still considered one of Darwin’s Finches. Paul photographed this one on Santa Cruz Island.
Next, a shot of an Española Ground-Finch found on Isla Española.
Finally, a photograph of a Genovesa Ground-Finch Paul captured on – wait for it – Genovesa Island.
Thanks to Paul Demkovich for helping us see the differences Darwin noticed over 165 years ago.
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