And I dont see the 'awe factor' in this really. Wouldn't it be the equivalent of a hermaphrodite Human?
No, this is not the equivalent. Just to clear it up for anyone.....The significance of this oddity is that the individual is literally half female and half male, meaning one side is entirely female and one side is entirely male. The article hints that this is something that is only known to occur in birds, because of how cellular determination occurs in birds.... which is much different than cellular determination in mammals.... especially pertaining to the sex and sexual uniformity of those cells.
I would guess that this oddity is similar to the way identical twins occurs... where an egg is split in half... I guess something like thing happens, except the egg is only split by sex, the male cells and female cells segregate themselves...but the egg remains one individual instead of two.
Getting back to the Hermaphrodite human... if this chicken was to have a human equivalent, the human would physically and chemically be half female and half male... the half refering to location.. not percentage of tissues that are scattered throughout the body, but rather, one type on one side, and the other type on the other side.
So, a human equivalent to this chicken would, as an adult, probably:
~have manly facial hair on one side of its face, and lighter finer, feminine hair on the other side
~Would probably have the pronounced masculine brow line (human skulls can be identified as male by this detail) on one side, and perhaps the lesser feminie brow line on the other side
~have one female breast, perhaps with a functioning mammary gland, and a male breast on the other side
~have one feminine hand, and one larger, masculine hand (probably the same with the feet)
~I dont know how the reproductive tract on this chicken is, but assuming it still follows the rule that there are female cells on one side of the body, and male cells on the other, the human individual would probably have an ovary and fallopian tube on the female side of their body.. again, I don't know the details of what functions and what doesnt...
~I won't even get into the details of my thoughts on the arrangement of private parts.... but there probably would be one testical (being scientific, not obscene or offensive) on the male side of the body....
In conclusion, and just to really emphasize the importance of the article presented at the beginning of this thread, this chicken is something unique... and something that apparently only occurs in birds, and perhaps reptiles... due to the specific way they develop...
