Entomological Etymology 7: gynandromorphs
Look at these beauties! They're pretty unique, right? What's going on is that part of the body is anatomically male, while other parts are anatomically female.
This phenomenon is called gynandromorphism. That's from three Greek roots: gyno, or woman, as in gynecology. Andro, meaning man, as in Android. And morph, meaning form. In other words, a shape containing male and female characteristics.
Gynandromorphic animals are possible in insects because for them, sexually dimorphic traits are largely determined on an individual cell level. So under the right conditions, one cell can express male characteristics, while another cell can express female characteristics. This doesn't happen in humans because for us, most sexual characteristics are determined by hormones that circulate in the blood and affect the whole body.
One nice thing about hormonal sex differentiation is that you can overhaul the whole system if you want to change your sexual characteristics.
Happy trans day of visibility from your local trans bug scientist!! Gynandromorphs are not trans, but I wanted to highlight this amazing natural variation in sexual characteristics. Be well!
