Beaks change songs in Darwin’s finches

From Atlanta, Ga., at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society

The 14 species of Galapagos finches that have inspired evolutionists since the days of Charles Darwin may reveal yet more. The birds may have evolved different courtship songs as byproducts of beak changes, suggests Jeffrey Podos of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Standard theories of how species arise suggest such a possibility: Mating signals diversify as aftereffects of animals’ adapting to different environments.