In two small areas of mangrove forest on the west side of Isabela, the largest of the Galápagos Islands, the 80 or so remaining members of one of the world’s most endangered bird species are in serious trouble. Philornis downsi, a parasitic fly brought to the archipelago by humans, lays its eggs in the nests […]
Tag: charles darwin
Found: New Beetle Collected by Darwin 180 Years Ago
Call it a 205th birthday present: A beetle collected by Charles Darwin was declared a new species on the anniversary of his birth, February 12, 1809, a new study says. The beetle, dubbed Darwinilus sedarisi, after the naturalist and the author David Sedaris, is also a new genus of rove beetle—a group of highly diverse […]
Galápagos finches that inspired Darwin under threat from parasitical flies
The Galápagos finches are part of the history of science. Darwin collected them during the round-the-world voyage of HMS Beagle and their study helped the naturalist conceive the theory of evolution. Although all the birds belonged to a single group, the 14 species were spread across different islands in the archipelago. Darwin developed the idea […]
Volcano Birds in the Modern Age
From the time of Magellan, there has been a fascination with the birds that “laid their eggs in volcanoes.” Those birds, megapodes as a group, are in the news again as our Bronx Zoo has hatched young from a captive pair of maleo, the national bird of Sulawesi. The media coverage has stressed the “bizarre” […]