A small songbird with a conical beak, typically feeding on seeds.
From Old English 'finc', related to German 'Fink' and Dutch 'vink'. The word is ultimately onomatopoeic, imitating the bird's call. The name has remained remarkably stable across Germanic languages for over a millennium.
Finches are famous in science because of Charles Darwin's observations of Galápagos finches, which helped him understand evolution - different islands had finches with different beak shapes adapted to different food sources. The humble finch thus became one of the most important birds in scientific history, proving that even small creatures can have enormous impact on human understanding.
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