HOURHybrid species have long excited the human imagination: lions-tigers, zebras-horses, minotaurs. Now we have a brand new chimera to admire: the Gray Jay, a dazzling bird that is half blue jay and half green jay. This is a harbinger of our future under climate change.
Graduate student Brian Stokes discovered the jay while finishing his doctorate at the University of Texas. He was tracking the tropical green jay, whose range has shifted nearly 124 miles north over the past few decades due to climate change. One day, while browsing posts about green jays on Facebook, he noticed that a birdwatcher named Donna had posted a mysterious photo.
“She posted this strange bird and asked what it was,” Stokes recalls. “She thought it was maybe a blue jay that had some kind of genetic mutation or something.”
Stokes and his advisor, ecologist Tim Keitt, went to a woman's home near San Antonio and caught the strange-looking bird in 2023 using a fog net. They noted that the bird was communicating with blue jays and making their calls, as well as sounds associated with green jays. They took blood for analysis, attached a metal bandage to the leg and released the animal. Back in the lab, DNA testing revealed that the hybrid bird had a green jay mother and a blue jay father. This is the first time this phenomenon has been observed in non-captive populations. conclusions were published earlier this month in the magazine Ecology and evolution.
Hybrid species are surprisingly common in the plant kingdom, but less so in animals: about 10–15 percent of bird species are known to hybridize. But as animal ranges shift due to changes in global climate, the likelihood of encounters between species that have never interacted before increases, which could lead to the emergence of new ecological communities. “This is an interesting sign of what could potentially happen as a result of climate change and biodiversity,” says Stokes.
The fact that two species come into contact does not necessarily mean that they will produce offspring together. Stokes was surprised that the different jays mated at all because both species live in small groups and are quite territorial and aggressive. “We assumed they would be hostile to each other,” he says, “so we were actually quite surprised to see that.” Only one gray jay hybrid has been observed so far.
“She posted this strange bird and asked what it was.”
Scientists have documented other climate-related hybrids in the wild, e.g. crazy bear– where grizzlies and polar bears are found, as well as narlugs – descendants of narwhals and beluga whales. There are other cases where the ranges of individual species began to overlap due to temperature changes: southern flying squirrel and northern flying squirrel or Black-capped and Carolina tits.
“We expect climate to change the species' range, leading to hybridization,” says Scott Taylor, a biologist at the University of Colorado who was not involved in the somber jay study. “We're seeing this all over the world.” Of course, many hybrids are sterile and do not create new species.
Taylor says the somber jay hybrid is a really interesting find. “It's always surprising to discover a new species of hybrid bird, and in this case it's exciting that it's somewhere between a subtropical and a temperate species,” he says. However, he cautions that this is not a new species as it is likely sterile and also reproductively isolated from other hybrids. This means the new bird may have little or no impact on the future evolution of both blue jays and green jays. “We need time to find out,” he says.
David Toews, a biologist at Pennsylvania State University who has previously described others new hybrid birdssays hybridization caused by climate change is just one of many threats birds face in the wild. “While I think this may be significant in some cases, most species face many other threats – the most important of which is habitat loss. For many species, hybridization seems quite far down the list,” he says. “For example, hybridization between spotted owls and barred owls is a problem for the endangered spotted owl; however, the primary factor of conservation concern is significant habitat loss and modification.”
For Stokes, discovering a strange bird on Facebook was funny and strange, to say the least. “They're just two really charismatic species and, at the end of the day, a funny little bird.”
More from Nautilus about hybrid animals:
“A strange new animal gene pool is brewing in the Arctic» Scientists have seen the future and it is “grolar bears”
“New bird species arose from hybrids, scientists observe» The rapid and unusual appearance of a new finch in the Galapagos Islands hints that speciation is not uncommon. New hybrid species can appear and disappear quietly without anyone noticing.
“It's time to create chimpanzee-human hybrids» Humanzee is both scientifically possible and morally defensible.
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Main image: Brian Stokes
