For the First Time, Wild Blue Jay and Green Jay Produce Colorful Hybrid Offspring in Texas

Climate change has been linked to many environmental problems in recent years, ranging from… Seafood contaminated with mercury to Alaska’s rivers are rust-colored. Now, scientists suspect it may be a factor behind a rare hybrid bird spotted in Texas. This discovery was highlighted in a recent study published in the journal Environment and evolution.

1. Meet the hybrid jay

Meet the hybrid jay

according to ABC Newsa resident of San Antonio, Texas, first noticed a bird with a distinctive pattern in 2023 and shared a photo of it on various Facebook groups for bird lovers. Brian R. Stokes, Ph.D. The University of Texas Department of Integrative Biology researcher and lead author of the study couldn’t help but notice the strange color of the neck and face. Although the bird resembled a blue jay, it had the facial markings of a green jay.

Stokes and his colleagues decided to contact the photographer to help track the bird. After capturing the animal, they took a blood sample for DNA testing. It was actually the offspring of a blue jay and a green jay, not just a blue jay with a genetic mutation that led to the color difference. They found that the mother was a green jay and the father was a blue jay.

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Stokes told the ABC that climate change likely played a role in the pairing, as the two species were not always in close proximity. Years ago, the green jay was primarily found near the Texas-Mexico border. They have since expanded northward about 200 miles into Texas, likely chasing cooler temperatures. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have expanded their reach west of Houston. In addition to climate warming, human land development has forced birds out of their usual range.

newly discovered”Jay Gray“Hybrid species are not the only ones arising from new habitat overlaps. Many”Comic bears“—a hybrid of grizzly bears and polar bears—has been spotted over the past decade.