Overview

• An extremely rare half female, half male bird, known as a bilateral gynandromorph, has been spotted and photographed by a University of Otago zoologist, Hamish Spencer, while on vacation in Colombia.
• The bird, a Green Honeycreeper, displays distinct half green (female) and half blue (male) plumage.
• This is only the second recorded example of gynandromorphism in this species in more than 100 years.
• Gynandromorphs, animals with both male and female characteristics in a species that usually have separate sexes, are important for understanding of sex determination and sexual behaviour in birds.
• The phenomenon of gynandromorphy arises from an error during female cell division to produce an egg, followed by double-fertilization by two sperm.