Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds. The ground finch is one of at least 15 species of Galapagos finch descended ...

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 ...

There, they hold the seed between their feet and use their sharp beaks as a chisel to split open the husk and reach the “nutmeat” inside. They couldn’t do this very well right at the feeder.

And while you may have learned that some eat seeds while others eat insects, the wildest is the vampire ground finch. It uses its sharp beak to draw blood from other birds, as seen in the video below.

The common ancestor of all of Darwin’s finches arrived in the archipelago around 2 million years ago. Nowadays, there are 18 recognized species displaying a dazzling range of body sizes, beak ...

Their beaks are adapted to their preferred food: warbler finches, for example, spear insects with thin, sharp beaks, whereas ground finches crack open seeds with strong, blunter beaks.

Yes, there is such a thing as a vampire finch. By Joshua Sokol For half the year, a little brown bird on the northernmost islands of the Galápagos uses its wickedly sharp beak to pick at seeds ...

The wide variety of beak shape and size among finches on the archipelago has become an iconic foundational story behind Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” published in 1859 -- even ...

About 15 birds had serious head, neck and chest injuries, Trabka said. One had a sharp piece of metal attached to its beak and investigators were told spurs were attached to the birds' beaks, the ...