Rare Half-Male, Half-Female Cardinal Spotted In Pennsylvania

Bird is what's known as a bilateral gynandromorph, with male and female traits. This happens when female egg with two nuclei is 'double fertilized' by two sperm. The amazing male-female chimera was spotted in a Pennsylvania backyard. Male cardinals have bright red coloring; females have a much duller appearance.

Jeffrey and Shirley Caldwell have been attracting birds for 25 years with carefully tended backyard feeders. But the lifelong Erie, Pennsylvania, residents have never seen a creature so wondrous as the half-vermillion, half-taupe cardinal—its colors split right down the middle—that first showed up a few weeks ago in the dawn redwood tree 10 yards from their home.