The Friends of Charles Darwin

Scientists are staking out part of Britain's coastline to monitor the apparent birth of a new species - an exceptionally unusual chance to record evolution in action. Research on the "fossil coast" of Yorkshire - famous for a string of geological breakthroughs - has discovered two colonies of sea-snails which are almost certainly dividing to form a distinct new species. The grey-brown rough periwinkle Littorina saxatilis is described modestly by the team as "unremarkable and lacking charisma", but it stands to earn a place in the textbooks. "We are increasingly certain that we are seeing one species become two," said John Grahame, a biologist at Leeds University, who is leading the project at sites between Flamborough Head, Filey and Ravenscar.