While on vacation in Colombia, John Murillo, an amateur ornithologist, and Hamish Spencer, a zoologist, accidentally encountered a rare bird with two distinct colors. It is known that this is an extremely rare phenomenon in birds.
Two experts immediately recognized it as a green honey bird (scientific name: Chlorophanes spiza) – a native bird of the Hawaiian Islands – relatively small in size. This is only the second case of dichromatism in this species recorded in more than a century.
According to ornithologists, this phenomenon occurs when a bird is born half male and half female, also known as gynandromorph.
We often see male bees with blue plumage, while female honey bees have green plumage. Meanwhile, the individual here has both colors, divided equally on both sides of the body.
Bilateral gynandromorphism has been observed in other animals, including bees, butterflies, spiders, and insects. However, this is extremely rare in birds.
The bird’s beautiful colors amazed the ornithological community
The team did not observe any courtship behavior of this bird during the observation period. It tends to keep to itself and behave like other members of its species.
The research team also did not have access to collect blood and tissue samples for chromosome research. So they couldn’t confirm what made the bird unique.
Although there are many theories about how animals develop gynecological morphology, scientists believe it may happen in birds where female egg cells develop with two nuclei.
In mammals, male sex cells typically have one copy of each sex chromosome (X and Y), while female cells have two copies of the X chromosome.
On the other hand, in birds it is the opposite, their sex chromosomes are denoted as Z and W instead of X and Y. There, the female egg cell will have one copy of each chromosome (ZW ) in the nucleus, while male sperm will have two Z chromosomes.
Daniel Hooper, an ornithologist, believes that gynandromorphism can occur if the female egg cell develops with two nuclei, including a Z nucleus and a W nucleus. It is then “fertilized”. double” by two Z-bearing sperm, leading to the formation of a special morphology.
According to ornithologists, research on hermaphroditism in birds could lead to important discoveries, helping us better understand their biological sex, as well as their sexual behavior.
