This ‘Grue Jay’ Hybrid Looks Cool as Hell—but It’s a Warning Sign
Meet the “grue jay,” a rare offspring of a blue jay and a green jay—two common species whose evolutionary separation took place 7 million years ago. The resulting bird’s feathers are a muted, fashionable blue. But the marvelous discovery belies the fact that its existence may be the product of climate change’s threat to bird life. In a recent Ecology and Evolution paper, biologists at the University of Texas at Austin describe the odd jay in more detail, explaining how the blue and green jays’