Halictus ligatus, gynandromorph, left side, Maine

Gynandromorph. Park male. Part Female. Intersex. We run into these periodically. Maybe something like once every 25,000 specimens or so. This one is Halictus ligatus and was collected by Sara Bushman from Maine as part of her studies of coastal bees. This specimen is a hodge-podge of male and femaleness. The head is all female except for one yellow spot which is a gift from the male. The abdomen is largely or perhaps entirely male (not sure what that white stuff is at the end but you can see the genitalia below it peeking out). The thorax is interesting as it seems to almost be an average between the males and females...leaning more towards maleness. You can search our collections for a number of additional specimens. Photograph by Sydney Price. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.