Under these drastically changing conditions, the struggle to survive favored the larger birds with deep, strong beaks for opening the hard seeds. Smaller finches with less-powerful beaks perished.

Birds like northern cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, evening grosbeaks and purple finches have thick, short beaks designed ...

Photo by Patrice Bouchard[/caption] Insect-eating birds have a variety of beak shapes, each adapted to their specific foraging techniques and the types of insects they consume. Warblers, vireos ...

For example, the cactus finch has a long beak that reaches into blossoms, the ground finch has a short beak adapted for eating seeds buried under the soil, and the tree finch has a parrot-shaped ...

The different finch species on the islands are closely related to each other, but show wide variations in beak and body size and feeding behaviour. In particular, changes to the size and shape of the ...