UpdatedThu, Feb 25, 2021 at 10:06 am ET
Replies(20)
It’s not rare to see a pair of Northern cardinals. But what Waterford, Pennsylvania, birder Jamie Hill saw certainly was rare: a bird known as a bilateral gynandromorph, that is one divided right down the middle, half male and half female. (Shutterstock/Bonnie Taylor Barry)
GRAND VALLEY, PA When she saw the beautiful but peculiar-looking bird at her backyard feeder in Grand Valley, Annette Smith thought it was a genetic hybrid.
That sometimes happens in nature not often, but it does happen.
A liger, for example, is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger, and it has a mix of both parents traits. A tigon is born when a male tiger and female lion mate. Typically, these hybrids are the result of breeding in captivity and are rare occurrences in nature.