The Galapagos Islands are located approximately 1000 km from the coast of Ecuador, South America. These islands are known for having about fourteen species of Finches called the Darwin Finches. They are mainly called Darwin Finches because while going to a trip to the Galapagos Islands, Charles Darwin done a research and collected some evidences about the different species of Finches which he realised that the different species had different beak sizes. Fourteen species of Darwin Finches are endemic to Galapagos Islands meaning that they only exist on Galapagos Islands and one of them species is confined to Cocos Island in the Pacific Ocean.
One of the ideas that Darwin conclude was that different species of finches had different beak sizes
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A niche is the way a species exploits or makes a living from its environment. This includes where it lives and when, where and on what it feeds. Seven of the species live in trees and mainly eat insects. One species lives in trees and eats bud and fruits. Two live in cactuses and eat seeds or nectar. The final four species live on the ground and mainly eat seeds.
Ground Finches
The four species have similar coloration. The adult males are black while the females are streaked brown. They have beaks of the crushing category, which helps them on breaking the seeds.
The small ground finch has a small beak which is suited for eating tiny seeds. It searches for food on the ground for the seeds of plants such as the Galapagos carpetweed. This species is wide spread throughout the archipelago.
The large ground finch has a huge beak. It uses the beak for snapping open the woody seeds of
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Factors that increase a population are called biotic potential and are factors such as: reproduction rate, defence mechanisms.
Cactus Finches
The male cactus finches are mostly black, with probing beaks while the females are streaked, like the ground finches.
Both large and small finches are found on the large prickly pear cactus of the Galápagos, eating the small insects in the flowers or the fruit itself. You can find the small cactus finch in several islands except those inhabited by the closely related Large