Darwin's Finches

In 1835, Charles Darwin collected birds from the Galápagos Islands and mistook them for completely different families - wrens, blackbirds, finches. Ornithologist John Gould revealed the truth: they were all finches, descended from a single South American ancestor that arrived 2-3 million years ago. Their beaks had diverged so dramatically that Darwin literally couldn't recognize them as relatives. This wasn't variation - it was adaptive radiation on fast-forward.

Eighteen species evolved from one, each specializing in different food sources: crushing beaks for hard seeds, pointed beaks for cactus pulp, tool-using beaks for extracting insects, even blood-drinking beaks. Peter and Rosemary Grant documented evolution in real-time: after the 1977 drought, average beak size increased 4% in a single generation as only large-beaked birds could crack the remaining hard seeds. Natural selection, measured in millimeters.

The business lesson is profound: Empty niches don't stay empty. Darwin's finches diversified because the Galápagos had food sources but no specialists to exploit them. The fastest way to dominate is to enter a market where demand exists but optimized solutions don't. Specialization beats generalization when resources are abundant but varied.