Not all birds of this beak type eat large seeds, though. The American goldfinch, for example, loves thistle, or Nyjer. Its small beak is perfect for tiny, tough thistle seeds.

Notice the different types of beaks and how their shapes dictate a bird’s dining habits — particularly the way it consumes black oil sunflower seeds, a highly preferred food among feeder birds.

Finch Beak Data Sheet: 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.

The beaks of Darwin’s medium ground finches can evolve to crush the shells of hard seeds (Andrew Hendry/University of Massachusetts Amherst/PA) Your support helps us to tell the story.

Since Darwin’s finches use songs to attract mates, the song changes related to beak evolution could be a catalyst behind ecological speciation. However, speciation is a historical process that ...

The beaks of Darwin's medium ground finches can evolve to crush the shells of hard seeds. Credit: Andrew Hendry They say that hindsight is 20/20, and though the theory of ecological speciation ...

Peter and Rosemary Grant would fare well on "Survivor."Living alone on a small, uninhabited island, communicating with the mainland only by radio and relying on a national park service's monthly ...

Galápagos finches use their beaks to crush seeds and sing songs, so what happens to their musical trills when their beaks change to respond to new menus available under drought? Jeffrey Podos and ...

The vampire finch (Geospiza septentrionalis) is an unusual bird that only lives on two remote islands in the Galápagos: Wolf Island and Darwin Island.These two islands are about 100 miles away ...

Backyard feeders changed the shape of hummingbird beaks, ... — like those red and clear plastic ones filled with homemade sugar water — changed the size and shape of the birds' beaks.