A New Bird Just Appeared in Texas--and That's Not a Good Thing [View all]

Climate change has helped create a whole new type of bird called a Grue Jay—in San Antonio, of all places.

By Luis Prada

September 23, 2025, 8:24am



Around 7 million years ago, green jays and blue jays went their separate evolutionary ways. One opted for the humid, tropical climates of Central America, the other chose the crisp, temperate forests of the Eastern U.S. They kept their distance, promising that never the two shall meet, let alone get close enough to mate.

Climate change messed all that up. It’s thrown off bird migratory patterns just enough so that these two separate but similar species, separated by millions of years, have finally synced back up. They’ve created a whole new type of bird called a Grue Jay—in San Antonio, of all places.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin confirmed the existence of a hybrid offspring between a green jay and a blue jay. It’s possibly the first known vertebrate hybrid created by the simultaneous expansion of each species’ range thanks to climate change.

Climate Change Just Gave Us The Grue Jay, A Whole New Species of Bird

This new hybrid currently has no name, but for now, everyone is calling it a “grue jay,” a combination of a green jay creeping north and a blue jay flying west, with their newly expanded territory overlapping, and suburban south-central Texas, where the lucky species will get to watch Victor Wembanyama play.

More:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-new-bird-just-appeared-in-texas-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/