 The Atlantic archipelagos of the Canaries , Azores , and Madeira have a volcanic origin and they have never been part of a continent . The formation of Madeira started in the Miocene and the island was substantially complete 700 @,@ 000 years ago . In the distant past the major islands of these archipelagos were all colonised by Regulus species , which evolved on their respective islands isolated from mainland populations . The firecrest descendant evolved in Madeira and goldcrest subspecies evolved on the other islands . Cytochrome b gene divergence between common firecrests from Europe and Madeira firecrests suggests an evolutionary separation roughly 4 million years ago , considerably earlier than the 2 @.@ 2 million years ago maximum estimate for the goldcrest radiations in the Canaries and Azores . 
