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9h ago

Genetic Tests Confirm Rare Green-Blue Jay Hybrid in Texas

Researchers say overlapping ranges driven by climate shifts enabled the cross.

A male hybrid of a green jay mother and a blue jay father. Image credit: Brian R. Stokes.
Image
Image
A rare hybrid bird identified in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas (center panel, credit: Brian Stokes) is the result of mating between a male blue jay (left, credit: Travis Maher/Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Macaulay Library) and a female green jay (right, credit: Dan O’Brien/Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Macaulay Library).

Overview

  • University of Texas scientists sequenced nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, confirming a first-generation offspring of a blue jay father and a green jay mother.
  • The peer-reviewed study appears in Ecology and Evolution (Stokes & Keitt, 2025; doi: 10.1002/ece3.72148).
  • The male bird was first flagged by a backyard birder’s photo, then captured, blood-sampled, banded, and released, and it resurfaced in June 2025 near San Antonio.
  • Researchers link the event to recent range expansions of both species due in part to climate change, with land-use shifts also noted for blue jays.
  • The two lineages diverged at least about 7 million years ago; a similar hybrid was bred in captivity in the 1970s, and how often such hybrids occur in the wild remains unknown.