WHAT IS GYNANDROMORPHY?

Animals who have gynandromorphy feature characteristics from both sexes, while those with bilateral gynandromorphy have those characteristics split down their middle. This split between female and male characteristics in a gynandromorph’s body might also appear internally.

Some might confuse gynandromorphy with hermaphrodism, but the difference lies in appearance. An animal with hermaphrodism would have both female and male reproductive organs but appear to be of only one of those sexes on the outside. Hermaphrodism is observed much more frequently, however, than gynandromorphy.

In an email interview with National Geographic in 2020, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding laboratory biologist Danny Bystrak stated that the odds of spotting a gynandromorph in a Bird-banding operation would be “almost exactly one in a million.”

Then again, others like Stephen Rogers, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History Section of Birds collection manager, believe that figure “would only be for birds that show distinct differences.”

Gynandromorphs are also called “halfsiders” by ornithologists, those studying the branch of zoology dealing with Birds. Gynandromorphs that don’t exhibit sexual dimorphism, the bilateral features of half-female, half-male animals, could be more common than we think.

Unlike animals with gynandromorphy, those with hermaphrodism have both female and male reproductive organs but appear to be of only one of those sexes on the outside. Hermaphrodism is more common than gynandromorphy.