Cambridge, Mass., February 22, 2010 -- From how massive humpbacks glide through the sea with ease to the efficient way fungal spores fly, applied mathematicians at Harvard have excavated the equations ...

Carotenoids are the underlying pigment for much of the enormous variety in color found across birds and form the basis for the colors red, yellow, and orange. In a study published in Current Biology, ...

The shape of the beaks of different species of Galapagos finches played an important part in Darwin’s conception of natural selection. “In our field there is this presumption that the beak shape ...

Darwin’s finches are once again making scientists rethink evolutionary history. A genetic analysis of the finches reveals three new species. And the birds’ most iconic adaptation, beak shape, is ...

The same diverse array of Galápagos finch species that helped inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution have now assisted in another discovery, this time relating to the genetic basis for the ...

Every animal on this planet adapted to survive based on where they live. A well-known example is the group of so-called Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos Islands. There are 14 difference species that ...

When Darwin watched his famous finches flit about the craggy cliffs and lush forests of the Galapagos, he observed that something essential was at work in this remote part of the Pacific – some force ...

Lewis G. Spurgin is in the School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. If sexual imprinting is key in directing mate choice, then individuals ...

Biologist have compared the genes of large-beaked Cameroonian finches to those of their smaller-beaked counterparts, found the answer to a 20-year old mystery: 300,000 base pairs, apparently inherited ...

Despite the traditional view that species do not exchange genes by hybridisation, recent studies show that gene flow between closely related species is more common than previously thought. A team of ...

Despite the traditional view that species do not exchange genes by hybridization, a new study led by Princeton ecologists Peter and Rosemary Grant show that gene flow between closely related species ...

The arrival 36 years ago of a strange bird to a remote island in the Galápagos archipelago has provided direct genetic evidence of a novel way in which new species arise. On Nov. 23 in the journal ...