摘要：美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）2025年9月30日报道，得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分析的生物学科学家9月10日在《生态学与进化》杂志上发表了他们的惊人发现。该研究的第一作者、得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校生物学博士生布莱恩·斯托克斯说："我们认为这是首次观察到的可能因气候变化导

科学家发现雄性蓝松鸦（左）和雌性绿鵙鸦（右）自然交配的罕见杂交鸟（中）

一、得克萨斯大学生物学家谈他们关于不同鸟类自然杂交的惊人发现

美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）2025年9月30日报道，得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分析的生物学科学家9月10日在《生态学与进化》杂志上发表了他们的惊人发现。该研究的第一作者、得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校生物学博士生布莱恩·斯托克斯说："我们认为这是首次观察到的可能因气候变化导致两种物种范围的生活区域扩张而产生的杂交脊椎动物，"

该研究的合著者蒂莫西·凯特说，色彩鲜艳的绿鵙鸦传统上分布在南美洲、中美洲、墨西哥和得克萨斯州南部的部分地区。但自2000年以来，这种热带鸟类的领地沿着格兰德河向北扩展了数百公里（约2个纬度）并向圣安东尼奥市方向延伸。

得州中部的狂热观鸟者已经注意到了这一点，并在社交媒体和电子观鸟纪录平台（eBird）等应用程序上分享这些翠绿色鸟类的目击记录。自2018年以来，得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的综合生物学教授凯特一直在密切关注它们快速的北迁。他说："它们在野外非常显眼。"

几年后，斯托克斯加入了凯特的项目，他们诱捕鸟类采集血液样本进行基因分析，然后将它们放归野外。2023年5月，斯托克斯在社交媒体上监测绿鵙鸦目击报告时，在一个名为得克萨斯鸟类（Texbirds）的脸书群组中发现了一个有趣的帖子。圣安东尼奥市郊区的一位女士分享了一张不寻常的鸟类照片，它看起来不像斯托克斯或凯特见过的任何松鸦。有人观察到这只神秘的鸟跟随一群蓝松鸦，并发出类似的叫声。但它也发出了绿鵙鸦鸣叫时发出的咔嗒声和格格声。

凯特说："斯托克斯碰巧注意到这位观鸟爱好者贴出的这只奇怪松鸦的照片，他立刻告诉了我，然后我们直接开车去找它。" 他们尝试了几次才捕获这只疑似蓝松鸦-绿鵙鸦的杂交鸟。因为包括松鸦、乌鸦和渡鸦等鸦科鸟类非常聪明。

他们给这只神秘的鸟做了标记并抽血进行基因采样。他们指出，他们的研究对象同时表现出蓝松鸦和绿鵙鸦的明显特征。但这两种鸟的亲缘关系并不密切，大约是在700万年前从一个共同祖先分化而来。

这只鸟的背部和尾部有蓝色羽毛，翅膀上有白点，与蓝松鸦相似。但它没有蓝松鸦的尖顶冠，眼睛上方有一个斑点，这是绿鵙鸦的标志性特征之一。这只特立独行的鸟跟随一群蓝松鸦，并发出类似的叫声。但它也发出了绿鵙鸦的咔嗒声和格格声。

回到实验室后，凯特和斯托克斯完成了一系列基因分析，将他们收集的DNA与蓝松鸦、绿鵙鸦和其他松鸦物种的DNA进行比较，并确定这只神秘的鸟是一只雄性蓝松鸦和一只雌性绿鵙鸦的后代。

另一个已知的蓝松鸦-绿鵙鸦杂交例子是在20世纪60年代圈养环境下出生的，当时这两个物种的自然繁殖地相距约200公里。该标本保存在德克萨斯州的一个博物馆收藏中，与研究人员新发现的这只自然交配诞生的野生鸟惊人地相似。

具有蓝松鸦和绿鵙鸦遗传特征的杂交鸟

二、不同鸟类蓝松鸦与绿鵙鸦的自然交配可能导致"生物学变化"

纽约州立大学布法罗州立学院的生物学副教授加文·M·莱顿一直在研究野生鸟类的杂交趋势，他对这种配对感到惊讶。他说，科学家通常认为杂交是由于认错身份造成的：两只鸟没有意识到它们在与不同物种的成员交配。其他类型的鸟类中存在许多杂交种，但它们的亲缘关系比这两种松鸦更近。

对莱顿来说，这种奇怪的配对有点像"生物学变化球"。他解释道："这两种松鸦都会与配偶形成长期的社会纽带，我们预计它们对与谁形成这种配偶关系会相当挑剔。"此外，鸦科鸟类非常聪明，而且蓝松鸦和绿鵙鸦看起来截然不同。它们应该能轻易区分彼此。

莱顿推测，也许是因为繁殖季节末期，鸟类面临压力。"如果它们运气不好，没有及时找到同物种中没有配偶的个体，那么犯错的风险就可能更高。"

气候变化导致动物种群栖息地交叉，可能创造出不可预测的新物种

三、气温变化导致动物种群栖息地扩张，可能创造出不可预测的新物种？

凯特和斯托克斯将他们的发现描述为全球变暖和土地开发共同驱使动物种群迁往新的栖息地范围时产生的"日益意想不到的后果"之一。他们写道，这可能导致不可预测的动物互动。在这个案例中，是热带物种和温带物种之间的互动，并创造出前所未有的生态群落。

这是一个只有在今天才可能犯的"错误"，因为蓝松鸦和绿鵙鸦的分布范围开始重叠仅仅是过去十年内的事情。遍布美国东部的蓝松鸦一直在向西推进，可能是追随郊区化的步伐，并利用人们在后院放置的喂鸟器。

与此同时，根据凯特的说法，德克萨斯州近期夜间气温的升高可能使该地区更适合热带物种生存，这可以解释绿鵙鸦向北扩张的原因，它们也是喂鸟器的常客。这两个分布范围在圣安东尼奥附近交汇，正是在那里发现了令人惊讶的杂交鸟。

凯特说："可能数百万年没有互动过的物种突然开始接触，我们相信这很可能是气候变化和栖息地改造的结果。"他表示将更多地关注蓝松鸦和绿鵙鸦越来越多地共享同一栖息地会发生哪些有趣的现象？

A blue jay and a green jay mated, researchers say. Their offspring is a scientific marvel. By Amanda Schupak on CNN. September 30, 2025.

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 University of Texas at Austin and first author of the study published September 10 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

The vividly colored green jay is found in parts of South and Central America, Mexico and a limited portion of southern Texas. But since 2000, the tropical bird’s territory has expanded north by hundreds of kilometers — more than 100 miles and about 2 degrees of latitude — along the Rio Grande and up toward San Antonio, said study coauthor Timothy Keitt.

Avid birders across Central Texas have taken note, sharing sightings of the emerald birds on social media and apps like eBird. Keitt, a professor of integrative biology at UT Austin, has been keeping tabs on their rapid northward creep since 2018. “They’re pretty unmistakable in the field,” he told CNN. “You see a green jay and you absolutely know that it’s a green jay.”

Stokes joined Keitt’s project a few years later, trapping birds to take blood samplesfor genetic analysis and releasing them back into the wild. While monitoring social media for green jay sightings in May 2023, Stokes came across an intriguing post on a Facebook group called Texbirds. A woman in a suburb of San Antonio shared a photo of an unusual bird that didn’t look like any jay Stokes or Keitt had ever seen.

The mystery bird was observed following a flock of blue jays, making similar calls. But it also produced the clicks and rattling vocalizations of a green jay.

“He happened to notice that this person posted a picture of this odd jay, and immediately told me, and we got in the car and drove down to find it right away,” Keitt said.

He and Stokes described their finding as one of the “increasingly unexpected outcomes” that arise when global warming and land development converge to drive animal populations to new habitat ranges. This, they wrote, can lead to unpredictable animal interactions — in this case, between a tropical species and a temperate one — and create never-before-seen ecological communities.

Bird of a different feather in Texas

It took a couple tries to catch the suspected blue jay-green jay hybrid. Corvids — birds of a group that includes jays, crows and ravens — are notoriously clever.

The researchers tagged the mystery bird and drew blood for genetic sampling. They noted that their study subject displayed distinct traits of both blue and green jays — which aren’t that closely related and split off from a common ancestor around 7 million years ago.

The bird had blue feathers on its back and tail and white spots on its wings, similar to a blue jay. But it lacked a blue jay’s spiky crown and had a spot over its eye that is one telltale sign of a green jay. The outlier followed a flock of blue jays and made similar calls. But it also produced the clicks and rattling vocalizations of a green jay.

Upon returning to the lab, Keitt and Stokes completed a series of gene analyses, comparing the DNA they’d collected with that of a blue jay, a green jay and other jay species, and determined the mystery bird was the offspring of a male blue jay and a female green jay.

One other known example of a blue jay–green jay hybrid was born in captivity in the 1960s, when the two species’ natural breeding grounds would have been separated by some 200 kilometers (120 miles). The specimen is preserved in a museum collection in Texas and looks strikingly similar to the wild bird the researchers identified.

A blue jay–green jay pairing is a ‘biological curveball’

Gavin M. Leighton, an associate professor of biology at Buffalo State University in Western New York who has researched trends in hybridization among wild birds and was not involved in the study, was a little surprised by the pairing. Scientists, he said, tend to assume that hybridization arises from a case of mistaken identity — two birds that don’t realize they are mating with a member of a different species. Lots of hybrids among other types of birds exist, but many are more closely related than these jays.

A map shows where the green jay and blue jay ranges overlap in Texas, as reported from 2000 to 2023 in the eBird app. Brian Stokes/University of Texas

To Leighton, the odd pairing is something of a “biological curveball.”

“Both of these jay species form long-term social bonds with a mate,” he explained. “We would expect them to be pretty choosy about who they form these pair bonds with.” What’s more, corvids are extremely smart, and blue jays and green jays look quite different from one another. They should have no problem telling themselves apart.

Perhaps, Leighton speculated, it was the end of breeding season and the birds were under pressure. “If they aren’t having good luck finding an individual in their own species that is also without a mate, then maybe there’s a higher risk of making a mistake,” he said.

Expanding territories as temperatures rise

It’s a mistake that could only have been made today, as it’s been just within the past 10 years that the blue jay’s and the green jay’s ranges have started to overlap. Blue jays, which are found all over the eastern United States, have been pushing westward, possibly following suburbanization and taking advantage of backyard bird feeders.

Meanwhile, recent increases in overnight temperatures in Texas may have made the region more hospitable to tropical species, which could explain green jays’ expansion north, according toKeitt. (They are frequent feeder visitors, too.) The two ranges converge around San Antonio — where the surprising hybrid was found.

“Species that may not have interacted for millions of years are suddenly coming into contact, and we believe that’s most likely as a result of anthropogenic factors, like climate change and habitat modification,” Keitt said.

He’s interested to see what happens if blue and green jays increasingly share the same habitat. Will they fight each other off? Or ignore each other and peacefully coexist? One thing is likely: They’ll probably get better at knowing who’s who.

来源：读行品世事一点号