According to a latest study, after less than 2 centuries, Darwin’s finches could be at risk of extinction. A study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology on December 18, the birds’ well being is threatened by parasitic flies, and that they have the potential to wipe them out within a few decades.

But, lead author of the study, Dale Clayton, University of Utah biology professor said that the news wasn’t all ‘doom and gloom’.

Clayton added that a ‘modest reduction in the prevalence of the fly’ via intervention of human beings would possibly lessen the extinction rate. On the other hand, he also mentioned that the birds may evolve a defense mechanism via natural selection, making the flies, mainly their larvae, less dangerous.

No matter which way is taken, the fight against these parasitic nest flies is not going to be an easy task at all. Parasitic nest flies are officially called Philornis downsi and believed to have come on the Galapagos Islands in the 1960s.

As per Clayton, they are ‘pretty nasty customers’. He said that the eggs are generally laid in the nostrils of the nestlings. When they hatch the larvae starts feeding that lead to perforations via the bill in mainly bad cases. Clayton mentioned that the flies got prominence on the islands in the 1990s.

While speaking to Fusion, Clayton said that while there are other threats to the finches also, like invasive rats preying on nests, habitat loss and the tourism industry pressure, the fly is possibly the biggest threat presently.