Beak of the Finch fans rejoice! Possible new species emerges on Daphne Major
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[img]http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/05/science/05JPESSA3/05JPESSA3-master180.jpg[/img]
[quote=NY Times]
Its own origins date to 1981, when a strange finch landed on the island. He was a hybrid of the medium-beaked ground finch and the cactus finch. He had the sort of proportions that touch our protective feelings: a big head on a stout body. In other words, he was cute. They called him Big Bird.
Hybrids are not unknown among Darwin’s 13 species of finches, but they are rare. Because they evolved so recently, birds of these different species can mate but ordinarily choose not to. (Our own ancestors seem to have felt the same way about Neanderthals.)
Big Bird had a strange song that none of the finch watchers had ever heard. His feathers were a rich, extra-glossy black. He had more tricks in his repertory than his neighbors: He could crack the spiky, troublesome seeds of the Tribulus plant, normally the specialty of the big-beaked ground finch, as well as small seeds favored by the small-beaked ground finch. He could dine on the nectar, pollen and seeds of the cactus, which belongs to the cactus finch.
Big Bird mated with a medium-beak on Daphne. Their offspring sang the new song of Big Bird. And slowly, Big Bird became a patriarch. He lived 13 years, a long time for one of Darwin’s finches. His children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all sang his song, and they were clannish. They roosted in hearing distance of one another on the slopes of Daphne Major. What’s more, they bred only among their kind, generation after generation.
Big Bird’s lineage has now lasted for 30 years and seven generations. The Grants are cautious about its prospects — “It is highly unlikely that we have witnessed the origin of a long-lasting species, but not impossible,” they write — but other scientists are buzzing.[/quote]
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/science/in-darwins-footsteps.html]source[/url]
To people not familiar with the works of Peter and Rosemary Grant, they head up one of the longest running and most detailed evolutionary studies in the world. They have been collecting data on a remote island in the Galapagos since the 70s. The Pulitzer Prize winning book Beak of the Finch details some of their earlier work, I highly recommend it to anyone who has not read it.
To my knowledge this is the best data we have on a speciation event. We have plenty of intermediate groups and examples that speciated relatively recently, but in this case researchers can trace it from the very first individual.
Wow, that's actually really awesome
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