Photo by Peer/Motz/Western Illinois University
MACOMB, IL (UPI) - Between 2008 and 2010, researchers tracked and studied a rare bird -- a gynandromorphic Northern cardinal. Gynandromorphism is a condition whereby an animal presents both male and female characteristics.
Because the cardinal color split (half white, half red) ran vertically from top to bottom, the specimen was considered to exhibit bilateral gynandromorphism.
Ornithologists Brian D. Peer and Robert W. Motz, from Western Illinois University recently published the details of their observations in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
The researchers said though they never witnessed the half-and-half cardinal making a mating call or pairing up with a mate, the bird wasn't targeted by others for its strange looks.
