There are many examples of natural selection. One of the most famous is that of Darwins finches.

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Examples of natural selection

There are many examples of natural selection.  One of the most famous is that of Darwin’s finches.  He observed these birds when he travelled to the Galapagos Island when on his travels on the HMS Beagle.  He observed the differences in the size and shape of the bird’s beaks on the different islands, as they had evolved to eat different food types on the different islands of the archipelago.  He brought back samples of the birds and these are now preserved in the Darwin Centre in the National History Museum in London.  Some examples are:

The large ground finch had a strong beak with which to crack nuts open.

The large tree finch has a strong, sharp beak and it uses this to grasp large insects like beetles.

A warbler finch has a small pointed beak and it catches flying insects on the wing.  

The cactus finch has a long thin beak so that it can probe between the spines to take nectar from the cactus flowers and eat the seeds.

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The woodpecker finch has a very hard beak that it uses to hammer wood, and it is able to use a cactus spine to probe the bark for insect larvae.

Another commonly referenced example of natural selection was observed in the 19th century in Great Britain, and was caused due to polymorphism of colouration in moths.  The peppered moth, Biston betularia, had two main forms – a pale wing with darker speckled markings and a very dark coloured wing.  The dark wing is called the melanic form as it has a high concentration of the pigment melanin which makes it ...

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