Meet The World's Rare Hybrid Bird
By: NDTVNewsDesk
Image: X/@Rainmaker1973
The rare "grue jay" is a newly discovered hybrid bird, a mix of a blue jay and a green jay.
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This extraordinary hybridisation, potentially the first of its kind in a vertebrate, is linked to climate change.
Image: Pexels
The grue jay's discovery provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study the impact of changing environments on species interactions.
Image: Pexels
The grue jay is the offspring of a mother green jay and a father blue jay.
Image: Pexels
These species diverged millions of years ago, making their hybridisation an exceptionally unusual and significant event.
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Climate change has driven green jays, a tropical species, to migrate further north and blue jays, a temperate species, to shift their ranges west.
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These range expansions have caused their habitats to overlap for the first time, creating the rare conditions necessary for hybridisation.
Image: Pexels
The grue jay is considered one of the first documented cases of a vertebrate animal hybridising as a direct result of climate change.
Image: Pexels
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