Can female Birds really change their sex? (1 Viewer)

[RockyRacoon]

Hi everyone, I was reading AA Guide to Birds of Britain (1981 version), and read something that shocked me 'almost all birds have two ovaries, a left one and a right one, the left one is almost always the one used, however is it becomes damaged or disiesed the right one begins to grow not into another ovaries but into a testes'. Is this true? If so does this mean, for example, a female Mallard will moult into a male's plumage and be a male duck in all ways mentally?

Cheers,

 

[SteveClark]

I had a pair of King Quail (Coturnix chinensis) years ago. The female turned into a male (developed the male plumage) after laying several clutches of sterile eggs.

Steve Clark
Hamilton, Victoria, Australia

 

[Taryn]

That is so freaky!
Would love to know if this is true...

 

[SteveClark]

It's true

Obviously I didn't do any dissection but the male/female plumages are quite distinct.

Can't remember what happened to the birds. I think they were released. I was only a kid.

Steve

 

[RockyRacoon]

How about the behaviour of the bird did that change too? For example, did the female-male bird become more dominant, or did it know how to court females?

 

[Dave Adshead]

Strange but true, I know some members of the Wrasse fish family change from female to male, if the male dies for some reason. Didn't realise birds could.

 

[jurek]

No, they cannot. They cannot order things from the spam on the internet, they must suffer.

 

[Ppedro]

Hi everyone, I was reading AA Guide to Birds of Britain (1981 version), and read something that shocked me 'almost all birds have two ovaries, a left one and a right one, the left one is almost always the one used, however is it becomes damaged or disiesed the right one begins to grow not into another ovaries but into a testes'. Is this true? If so does this mean, for example, a female Mallard will moult into a male's plumage and be a male duck in all ways mentally?

Cheers,

From " The Mandarin Duck " by Colin Lever, part of the Shire Natural History series published in 1990,

" a change of sex can occur in many birds, but in the case of the mandarin duck it is especially obvious because of the elaborate plumage of the male, which is surpressed by female hormones. In the females of most birds only the left ovary is functional; if it becomes damaged in any way ( for example by being shot ) the rudimentary right ovary sometimes increases in size and acts, not as an ovary, but as a testis, resulting in a change of sex ".

I was surprised when I read this although I knew for example that old female Golden Orioles can gradually assume a male like plumage.

Perry

 

[RockyRacoon]

I was surprised when I read this although I knew for example that old female Golden Orioles can gradually assume a male like plumage.

So I suppose they are actually male birds when they are in male plumage? Perhaps because eventually the females left ovaries 'wear out' quicker than other species for some reason?

 

[alcedo.atthis]

"Hi everyone, I was reading AA Guide to Birds of Britain (1981 version), and read something that shocked me 'almost all birds have two ovaries, a left one and a right one, the left one is almost always the one used, however is it becomes damaged or disiesed the right one begins to grow not into another ovaries but into a testes'. Is this true? If so does this mean, for example, a female Mallard will moult into a male's plumage and be a male duck in all ways mentally?"

Jake, have a look at this :-

http://www.reefscapes.net/articles/articles/2002/hermaphroditism.html

Further
Hermaphrodites: Restricted opportunity for mating can favour the evolution of hermaphroditism, where an individual develops both male and female gametes. Sequential hermaphrodites switch sexual roles during their reproductive life, whereas simultaneous hermaphrodites produce eggs and sperm at the same time. Gamete trading has evolved as a means of preventing simultaneous hermaphrodites from cheating one another

Further :-

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s818157.htm

Regards

Malky

 

[Rasmus Boegh]

I'd like some additional evidence for the claim that birds are truly able to change sex. Birds (and almost all mammals) have a relatively simple system for determining sex that is completely bound by the chromosomes, to be specific the two sex-chromosomes (gonosomes). Basically, a female bird has a Z and a W, while a male bird has homozygous sex-chromosomes; i.e. ZZ (as opposed to XY in male mammals and XX in female mammals, with the exception of a few rather unique species). Of course various abnormalities exists (e.g. hermaphroditism), but that's a different chapter altogether. Anyway, how the W in the female bird could be changed into a Z is a question I would be unable to answer and that's why I really do need some more evidence for it (did I really sleep through such a class in biology :eek!. Speaking of which... anybody knows what sex a bird is if it has ZZW or ZO? I seem to remember that the single W is very important for development into females, but that the double Z's are equally important for development into a male (unlike in e.g. humans where it is the presence of an Y that results in a male, while it mainly is the absence of an Y - rather than the presence of two X's - that results in a female due to the lack of SRY) which could suggest that sex-chromosome aneuploids are lethal in birds... oh well, that was perhaps too far off the subject!

Having said above one thing should be clear: There's a big difference between looking like a male (or for that matter a female) and being one. It is wellknown that some birds are able to suppress the development of the male plumage if a dominant male is around (this is wellknow from e.g. chickens). It may look like a female "on the outside", but it is still 100% male. Similar examples can be "produced" with the use of various chemicals (indeed, some of the things we're letting out into the nature do this which is starting to show in some species and localities). So, if the removal of the normally functional oviduct in a female bird results in it becomming male-like is a question I don't have the answer to and that could very well be the case... but I still need additional evidence for the possibility of a true sexual change (i.e. starting as a functional male and becomming a functional female or vice versa). Of course e.g. fishes are a totally different case, as their gender is determined through various processes that generally are very different from the mammalian and avian system.

 

[jurek]

I think true sex change in birds (that is female produces sperm) is impossible.

Old female birds quite often have hormonal disorders and develop male-like apperance, this can be compared to some elderly women growing moustache.