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SPOTTED: Half-Male, Half-Female Bird
You don't have to be an ornithologist to know that red northern cardinals are male and brownish-gray ones are female.
But what about a Cardinalis cardinalis that sports red feathers on one side of its body and brownish-gray feathers on the other? Why, that cardinal is half-male and half-female, of course--and just such a rare bird has been observed in northwestern Illinois.
An example of a phenomenon biologists call bilateral gynandromorphism, the bird was observed for more than 40 days between Dec. 2008 and March 2010--and it certainly caught the attention of the scientists who spotted it.
"It was amazing when the bird was viewed from one side it appeared as a normal male and from the opposite side it appeared as a normal female," Dr. Brian D. Peer, a professor of biology at Western Illinois University in Macomb and one of the scientists, told The Huffington Post in an email. "It wasn't until you could see both halves of the bird did you realize it was a truly unique individual."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/half-male-half-female-bird-cardinal-plumage_n_6392336.html
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Happy New Year.
Sid
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