darwin finches refers to a group of passerine birds.
darwin finches refers to a group of passerine birds.
darwin finches refers to a group of which creature?
passerine birds
darwin's finches (also known as the galápagos finches) are a group of about 15 species of passerine birds. they are well known for their remarkable diversity in beak form and function. they are often classified as the subfamily geospizinae or tribe geospizini. they belong to the tanager family and are not closely related to the true finches. the closest known relative of the galápagos finches is the south american "tiaris obscurus". they were first collected by charles darwin on the galápagos islands during the second voyage of the "beagle". apart from the cocos finch, which is from cocos island, the others are found only on the galápagos islands.
darwin's finches
moreover, in the well-studied darwin finches signs of reticulate evolution can be observed. peter and rosemary grant, who carried out extensive research on the evolutionary processes of the geospiza genus, found that hybridization occurs between some species of darwin finches, yielding hybrid forms. this event could explain the origin of intermediate species. jonathan weiner commented on the observations of the grants, suggesting the existence of reticulate evolution: ""to the grants, the whole tree of life now looks different from a year ago. the set of young twigs and shoots they study seems to be growing together in some seasons, apart in others. the same forces that created these lines are moving them toward fusion and then back toward fission"."; and ""the grants are looking at a pattern that was once dismissed as insignificant in the tree of life. the pattern is known as reticulate evolution, from the latin reticulum, diminutive for net. the finches' lines are not so much lines or branches at all. they are more like twiggy thickets, full of little networks and delicate webbings"."
reticulate evolution