This article is about a Green Honeycreeper (bird) that was found in Colombia exhibiting bilateral gynandromorphism. This means that the bird was both male and female at the same time, this was determined using the bird's color patterns. The left side of the bird was green (female) and the right side was blue (male). Although this is rare it has been observed in some species of birds and butterflies. Researcher Hamish Spencer, states that although the causes of this mutation have not yet been discovered he hypothesized that like humans birds have two sex chromosomes. Mutations in the separation of these sex chromosomes led to some cells in this bird being female ZZ and some being male WZ.
I find this article interesting because I didn't think cells could survive mutations like this, much less provide viable offspring. I would also like to find out some of the difficulties that would come with having this mutation. Is this bird able to successfully reproduce? If so what would its offspring look like
The story about the Green Honeycreeper found in Colombia, being both male and female, is really cool! It shows us how amazing nature can be and how much we still have to learn about animals.
ReplyDeleteI think is a really cool discovery! However, if they possess both genotypes I would assume that it is like those that have Klinefelter (male possessing two X chromosomes) and those individuals are usually infertile.
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