A rare hybrid (center) identified in a San Antonio suburb is the result of mating between a male blue jay (left) and a female green jay, a study found. Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; Brian Stokes/University of Texas at Austin; Danita Delimont/Alamy Stock Photo

What do you get when you cross a blue jay with a green jay? That’s not the start of a joke, but the subject of a new study that aims to describe a hybrid bird never encountered before in the wild.

The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is why does the mystery bird exist?

“We think it’s the first observed vertebrate that’s hybridized as a result of two species both expanding their ranges due, at least in part, to climate change,” said Brian Stokes, a doctoral student of biology at the Uni

See Full Page