What happens when it wants to mate?
Mitosis
meow meow meow meow XDD
Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
61–69 of 69 posts
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#62The real question is what is a "Sesquicentennial Distinguished Professor"?
From what I can gather, it's a special title at the University of Otago. It means he was received the standard title of Distinguished Professor [0] as part of a special group of appointments made to celebrate the university's 150th anniversary in 2019. [1]
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguished_professor 1: https://www.otago.ac.nz/otagobulletin/news/poutoko-taiea-dis...
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#63Chimerism is a whole lot of fun. Realistically, there are loads of humans with portions of their body differing pretty significantly in genes just due to somatic cell mutations during early development (not just standard zygote-fusing), right?
Sure, most of these changes would still be nearly imperceptible, but maybe some day whole-genome sequencing will be cheap enough that the true frequency of mosaicism can be studied by yoinking cells from all over one's body.
In the mean time, the intentional 'chimerization' of plants via grafting is pretty interesting too. Adam's Laburnum is a very visually striking example somewhat akin to this bird, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B_Laburnocytisus_%27Adamii%2... sporting both yellow and coral-pink flowers, though the bilateral nature of the bird's mosaicism is what's really special.
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
? > “The phenomenon arises from an error during female cell division to produce an egg, followed by double-fertilization by two sperm,” he explains. The bird is a chimera, with a different genome on each side of its body, one male (ZZ), one female (ZW).
... and they determined that from a photo?
It's less difficult than you think. Tetragametic chimeras for half-sider budgerigars have different genomes on either side, and the mechanism they occur by is through fusion of two distinct embryos with different DNA[1]
Given we know the phenotype of this Green Honeycreeper has a male half and a female half, and given how incredibly likely that the mechanism is following established ways that chimeras occur, it is not hard to say with confidence that the male and female halves of the observed bird are almost certain to have distinct genotypes. Put another way, it would be a much more radical hypothesis that "this halfsider bird with two distinct sexes would not be a chimera."
Obviously we'd ideally wish to collect DNA samples from each side of the bird
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#65What happens when it wants to mate?
Bilateral gynandromorphs tend to be infertile.
https://www.livescience.com/64831-cardinal-gynandromorph.htm...
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
... and they determined that from a photo?
It's less difficult than you think. Tetragametic chimeras for half-sider budgerigars have different genomes on either side, and the mechanism they occur by is through fusion of two distinct embryos with different DNA[1] Given we know the phenotype of this Green Honeycreeper has a male half and a female half, and given how incredibly likely that the mechanism is following established ways that chimeras occur, it is no…
The interesting part to me is that it's described -- in birds -- as an error in female cell division, rather than the fusion of two embryos.
That implies that there are no same-sex chimera birds running around undetected.
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#67I thought they meant hermaphrodite but then saw the picture. They mean luterally half, right down the middle.
> I thought they meant hermaphrodite The case in the article is gynandromorphism. Intersex is not necessarily a form of gynandromorphism. Intersex refers to individuals who have biological characteristics that don't fit neatly into the two biological sexes of male and female. This can include variations in chromosomes, gonads, hormones, or genitals. Gynandromorphism is a specific type of chimera, where the individual…
I'm not sure why you're trying to tell me about intersex. I was talking about hermaphroditism like in earthworms and snails.
Re: Rare half female, half male bird spotted by University of Otago zoologist
#68What happens when it wants to mate?
Bilateral gynandromorphs tend to be infertile. https://www.livescience.com/64831-cardinal-gynandromorph.htm...
I was more wondering about their behavior, like do they try to seek out mates? Are they attractive to non-gynandromorph birds? Do they physically attempt intercourse?
> but this one may actually be fertile as the left side is female, and only the left ovary in birds is functional
It's really fascinating!