First known wild ‘grue jay’ hybrid spotted in Texas
Green and blue jays are crossing paths as temperatures rise.
If you happen to find yourself in south Texas and spot a strikingly colored bird, be sure to snap a photo.
According to biologists at the University of Texas at Austin, it may be a mix between a green jay (Cyanocorax yncas) and a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata).
Unofficially dubbed a “grue jay,” the bird likely marks one of the first confirmed examples of a vertebrate animal that hybridized partially due to climate change.
This tale of two jays began around 7 million years ago, when both species split off from their ancestors on their own evolutionary paths.
Green jays are tropical birds native to Central America whose range previously extended about as far as the United States-Mexico border.
By comparison, their blue jay cousins are known to generally prefer the more temperate environments of the eastern US, and rarely fly further west than Houston, Texas...
Read more: https://www.popsci.com/environment/blue-jay-green-jay-hybrid/
