“Gynandromorph: Noun: An abnormal individual, esp. an insect, having some male and some female characteristics.”
While setting up several hundred crosses over the past few days, I saw thousands of flies. One of them in particular caught my eye:
A gynandromorph.
Left
Right
This fly clearly has sex combs on both forelegs, but the genitals look neither fully male nor female. The left side of the head is male, as the FM7 balancer gives a bar shaped eye if no wild-type chromosome is present. The right side of the head is likely female, but the visible phenotypes can’t determine this for certain. I’m not sure why the wing is messed up.
A thorough explanation of what’s actually happened to this unusual creature can be found here:
http://amasianv.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/its-a-male-its-a-female-no-its-a-gynandromorph/
Fascinating, I have never seen such a fly, despite all the crosses I make
thx for sharing this rarity !
By: phdbility on June 2, 2012
at 10:46 pm
Beautiful! I have sorted thousands and also never come across such a gem!
By: SM Morgan on June 3, 2012
at 4:05 am
I’ve been pushing flies around for about 5 years, and this is the second example I’ve ever come across. The first I only noticed because of the “confused” genitalia, but it was otherwise normal looking. This recent one was a far more striking example though, thanks to the balancer.
I expect this happens slightly more regularly than we realise, but most just aren’t that obvious and go unnoticed because we’re not looking for them.
By: arrogantscientist on June 4, 2012
at 11:21 am
I’ve had a few of these turn up–but for some reason I never had the foresight to take a picture of them! Thanks for linking my site.
By: AmasianV on June 4, 2012
at 11:50 am
Hello! I want to thank you for the creation of this blog!! It has been incredibly helpful. I’m working in a lab as an intern and I’m a high schooler, so some of the things my mentor explains is hard to understand but this blog makes everything so much simpler and understandable!! It has been a life saver.
By: Mina on June 20, 2012
at 12:44 pm
What was the cross and expected genotype?
By: Terry on October 2, 2012
at 4:14 pm