Rare bird is male on one side and female on the other

In Rector, Pa., researchers have spotted one strange bird.

This rose-breasted grosbeak has a pink breast spot and a pink “wing pit” and black feathers on its right wing — telltale shades of males. But on its left side, the songbird displays yellow and brown plumage, hues typical of females.

Annie Lindsay had been out capturing and banding birds with identification tags with her colleagues at Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector on September 24 when a teammate hailed her on her walkie-talkie to alert her of the bird’s discovery.

Lindsay, who is banding program manager at Powdermill, immediately knew what she was looking at: a half-male, half-female creature known as a gynandromorph.

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ANNIE LINDSAY

Researchers at Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector, Pa., spotted this rose-breasted grosbeak that has pink and black male coloring on one half of its body and yellow and brown female hues on the other side.

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A rose-breasted grosbeak that was captured in a Pennsylvania nature reserve is a bilateral gynandromorph — male on the right side and female on the left side.

The $500 Butterfly - Gynandromorph

Didier Descouens

Small White, Gynandromorph

A gynandromorph is an organism that contains both male and female characteristics. The term comes from the Greek γυνή (gynē), female, ἀνήρ (anēr), male, and μορφή (morphē), form, and is used mainly in the field of entomology.

Notable gynandromorphic organisms are butterflies, moths and other insects, wherein both types of body part can be distinguished physically due to sexual dimorphism.

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