"Gynandromorphy like that in this cardinal occurs when a female egg cell develops with two nuclei—one with a Z and one with a W—and it’s 'double fertilized' by two Z-carrying sperm. The chimeric individual then develops with half of its body as a male ZZ and the other half as a female ZW. If you were to examine a cell from the bright red male side, it would have cells with ZZ chromosomes. If you looked at a cell from the left, it would have cells with ZW chromosomes. This phenomenon happens in birds, many insects, and crustaceans.... Part of what makes this particular cardinal so exciting... is that it may be able to reproduce. 'Most gynandromorph individuals are infertile, but this one may actually be fertile as the left side is female, and only the left ovary in birds in functional.'... [T]he cardinal is always in the company of a male. 'We’re happy it’s not lonely'...."
(National Geographic.)
February 1, 2019
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31 comments:
I saw the headline and my initial thoughts were “Cardinal as in Catholic authority” and “half male/half female as in he doesn’t have the balls to stand up to Cuomo regarding NY abortion law”.
Have I lost the ability to see a headline at face value?
Photo don't lie: S/he's fabulous.
Send garage to take a better picture.
Cardinalis androgynis
Has zhe been offered a cable talk show yet?
So the bird can literally go fuck itself?
isn't THE REAL QUESTION what Gender this bird identifies as?
The bird feels uncomfortable in its own body.
Self deprecating humor?
The Meade jokes almost write them selves.
All in great fun, of course.
"Rare half-male, half-female cardinal spotted in Pennsylvania"
I knew that the RCC had been responsible for a lot of sexual crimes in Pennsylvania, mostly pederasty (priests abusing/raping boys), but to have promoted Bruce Poofter to cardinal?
"'... [T]he cardinal is always in the company of a male. 'We’re happy it’s not lonely'...."
The #metoo movement is outraged.
The Cardinal self identifies as an Owl.
Life is so cool! Who knew (before this morning) that birds' left ovaries are functional but their right ovaries are not?
...and I'm glad that they did point out that this condition is RARE. Of course, once the teenage cardinals find out about this one, how much do you want to bet 20% of next year's graduating class of cardinals suddenly realize they are gynandromorphic, but it just doesn't show?
So I understand is that cardinal in their backyard is 50% more male that the Cardinal of New York.
To offspring: I've tired to be both a mother and a father to you...
The half-male half-female identifies as half-female half-male.
Gentlebirds prefer blonds.
only the left ovary in birds in functional.
That's both weird that female birds are lopsided and pathetic that Nat Geo makes a typo in an important sentence.
Rarely seen outside of the Vatican.
The jokes write themselves.
You see? We warned you — this is what you'd get. First you allow Carl Linnaeus to fool around with binomial nomenclature. Next they'll be demanding to have their so-called "mate for life" marriages given equal legal status. Conservative artists will be forced to bake their perverted wedding suet cakes. End of aviary civilization.
What color were the spots?
Time to re-read "All You Zombies."
A complete side note here, but since the whole oddity of bird chromosomes came up:
It is the female who carries the mismatched ZW chromosomes, meaning she has the chromosomes to make a male bird. Indeed it is rare, but there is a phenomenon called parthenogenesis in which a female lays an unfertilized egg and that egg hatches into a male bird. And since birds evolved from dinosaurs...
All of which has nothing to do with the cardinal, but I couldn't miss a chance to say that Michael Crichton overcomplicated things with that frog DNA explanation in Jurassic Park.
The subtext is that this has some relevance to the 6’2” tranny with the blond wig.
I think National Geographic should have reined in this author, instead of letting them go off “half-cocked”...
Seriously, if the female of the species is a “hen” and the male of the species is a “cock” then this bird would be.....?
What’s a henway?
Wow tough crowd....
A Yellow bird
with a yellow tail
Yes, surely this can be leveraged as someone's campaign mascot?
More evidence of the encroachment of human introduced hormones and endocrine inhibitors into the environment. There are also numerous dual sex bass in the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers. If you think this isn't a problem for humans you are very mistaken.
A half-male, half-female cardinal? Let me guess: he was molesting some altar boys?
I stopped reading NG when their african pictorals went PG.
Unless and until you sample some cells from that particular cardinal (which would require capturing it, which would likely kill it), you have no idea if it is half-male, half-female or just a color aberration. Yet another example of people projecting their assumptions and desires on animals.
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