Who is Charles Darwin and why is he important?

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who changed the way humans viewed

themselves and the world around them though his amazing ideas on evolution

and natural selection.

Charles Darwin also presented evidence from his detailed research which included a five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle. On this voyage, Darwin visited different regions such as Brazil, Chile, Australia , the Falkland islands and the Galapagos islands.

In 1831 Charles Darwin boarded a ship called the HMS Beagle and set out on a fantastic five-year voyage around the world to study and collect animal , plant and rock sample.

Darwin was amazed at the variety of species he saw on his adventure. The Beagle visited the Galapagos islands(a group of 19 islands and more than about 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador in south America)and while he was there Darwin collected samples and made notes that would eventually change the way people thought about world.

Darwin noticed that although the different islands had similar creatures and plants , many seemed to have adapted to suit their local environments . Finches(a type of bird),for example, had different beaks on each island , suited to eating the particular seeds or insects found there! He also noted remarkable differences between the mocking birds found on San Cristobal,Floreana and two other islands. When he returned to England he devoted his time trying to figure out why varied from place to place.

Born:12th February 1809

Died:19th April 1882

The Darwin's had ten children, two died in infancy.

Charles Darwin