Rare yellow cardinal caught on camera in Alabama
Published in Weird News
(UPI) A yellow cardinal caught on camera in an Alabama woman's back yard is a "one in a million" discovery, an expert said.
Karem Maldonado said she was taking photos of the birds in her Theodore back yard when she spotted the yellow cardinal, a variety she had heard of before but never seen in person before a previous sighting of the same bird only a few days earlier.
"He looked at me with one eye, and then looked at me with the other," Maldonado told WKRG of the bird, which she nicknamed Mr. Sunshine.
Geoffrey Hill, an Auburn University ornithologist, said the cardinal's yellow color is caused by a "one in a million" genetic mutation similar to albinism in humans.
"All animals carry a DNA code, and all animals have mutations. Certain mutations have a dramatic effect on what the organism will look like. This shows that nature is not static. It is a work in progress and is changing," Hill said.
Copyright 2019 by United Press International
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