A rare he-she butterfly is born in London's NHM

[Bruce Walsh]

This is a bilateral gynandromorph.  Segmental gynadomrophs, where part  of the
wing is a different sex that the rest, also occur, and are more common.

Leps use a ZZ/WZ sex determination system, where ZZ are males and ZW 
are females
(opposite of the XY and XX mammalian system for males and females),
so that an initial ZW (female) cell can undergo a faulty mitosis to 
give rise to
ZW (female) and ZZ (male) daughter cells, and hence be different sexes.

cheers

bruce


 
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