[Posted by Chuck Almdale, submitted by Lu Plauzoles]

You read that right. Read the article in Smithsonian Magazine which includes some great photos.

“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,” Stokes explains in a university statement. The finding is particularly surprising because green jays and blue jays branched away from each other in the evolutionary tree seven million years ago. And as recently as a few decades ago, their habitats did not even overlap.

Here’s a colorful map from the article. Someone did a lot of censusing, or maybe it all came from eBird.

And while your at it, read about Burket’s Warbler in Pennsylvania, a three-species hybrid.