A rare bird indeed: A cardinal that’s half male, half female

Researchers believe a cardinal in Erie, Pa., is a rare bilateral gynandromorph, half male and half female. Its left side is the taupe shade of female cardinals; its right, the signature scarlet of males.

Not much is known about the phenomenon, but this sexual split has been reported among birds, reptiles, butterflies and crustaceans.

No one can be sure the bird is a gynandromorph without analyzing its genes with a blood test or necropsy, but the split in plumage down the middle is characteristic of the rare event, said Daniel Hooper, an evolutionary biologist at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology.