Charles Darwin Comes to The Galapagos Islands
The most famous person ever to have visited The Galapgos Islands is Charles Darwin. Although he stayed on the islands for only a short time, he produced enormous contributions to science and the study of evolution. In his mid twenties, Darwin travelled around the world on the HMS Beagle and one of the ship's stops was on the Galapagos Islands. It was in 1835 that Charles Darwin sailed from Tierra del Fuego and arrived at the Galapagos Islands for five weeks. As Darwin spent his time here observing the wildlife of the Galapagos, he would notice that the species were changeable, exposed to the process of evolution. He would use terms such as genetic mutation, natural selection, adaptation to the environment to define and describe his theory of the Origin of Species in 1859.
Darwin's Finches
This little group of birds found on the Galapagos Islands was made famous by the theory of Evolution, created by Charles Darwin. The birds are dark-colored and small, the size of a sparrow. There are finches on each one of the islands of the Galapagos, they chirp a lot, and they are not afraid of humans. They belong to the finch family but this Galapagos groups forms a whole new subfamily called Geospiznae. There are thirteen species, endemic to the Galapagos islands, and each and every one of these 13 species originated from the same original species which arrive on the Galapagos from St. Lucia Island in the Caribbean. The original species is called Melanospiza.
Most people would agree that birds from all thirteen species of Darwin's finches look very similar. It takes a trained eye to really tell the difference in beak structure that defines each species. Darwin was a specialist who had no trouble telling the difference amonst beak shapes of the finches on the Galapagos Islands. Although he noticed the difference in structure while visiting the islands, he would realize only years later, while developing his theory of evolution, that each bird species came from the same mother species, and had modified to adapt to specific functions.
Darwin's Finches
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- Cocos finch (Cocos Island)
- Cactus finch
- Large cactus finch
- Small ground finch
- Medium ground finch
- Large ground finch
- Sharpbill ground finch
- Small tree finch
- Medium tree finch
- Large tree finch
- Carpenter finch
- Mangrove finch
- Vegetarian finch
- Warbler finch
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- Pinaroloxias inornata
- Geospiza scandens
- Geospiza conirostris
- Geospiza fuliginosa
- Geospiza fortis
- Geospiza magnirostris
- Geospiza difficilis
- Camarhynchus parvulus
- Camarhynchus pauper
- Camarhynchus psittacula
- Cactospiza pallida
- Cactospiza heliobates
- Platyspiza crassirostris
- Certhidea olivacea
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