This is Bird Note.

Scientists have long thought that new species took a very long time to emerge.

This thinking has now changed dramatically.

Thanks to research done in the Galapagos, the site of Charles Darwin's inspiration.

On the small island of Daphne Major, Rosemary and Peter Grant have studied the three species

of native finches for decades.

One day, in 1981, they watched a newcomer arrive, a larger finch from an island a hundred

miles away.

Before long, the new finch made it with one of the finches already on the island.

No one expected it, but this hybrid union produced descendants different from any of the island's

known species.

Different enough that the hybrid male's songs didn't attract females of the other species,

and the beaks of the new finches had a unique size and shape.

Ultimately, the new line of offspring began to breed among themselves and became established

on the island.

Blood samples showed the new birds were genetically unique.

There was now a new species of finch on the island.

The grants had a front row view of the emergence of a new, unique species, and it had happened

in just two generations faster than anyone thought possible.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann.

Today's show brought to you by the Babbling Foundation.