Seeing as you asked @jpm.
One hundred years ago, the great, remarkable J.B.S. proclaimed:
When in the F1 offspring of two different animal races one sex is absent, rare, or sterile, that sex is the heterozygous sex (heterogametic sex).
In mammals males are heterozygous (XY), females homozygous (XX).
In birds males are homozygous (ZZ), females heterozygous (WZ).
Biology being biology there are rare exceptions that prove the rule.
So, cross a male and a female bird from two closely related species resulting in viable (they hatch) offspring. In birds, by Haldane’s rule, the heterozygous (WZ) female will be sterile or otherwise maimed: hybrid breakdown, the opposite of vigour.
Avian respiratory protein (rp), nuclear chromosomal (Z,W) and mitochondrial (m) genetics:
Homozygous Male - father - bird (Z.(i).rp x Z.(i).rp(a) + Mm(c).rp) → sperm (Z.(i).rp)(a)
x
Heterozygous Female - mother - bird (W x Z.(i).rp + Fm.(j).rp(b)) → daughter egg (W + Fm.(j).rp(b))
'=
Daughter bird ((F)W x ((M)Z.(i).rp(a) + Fm.(j).rp(b))
A daughter bird gets some critical respiratory protein (avian haemoglobin) genes from her father’s nuclear Z chromosome (a) and some from her mother’s mitochondrial genes (b). The W female sex chromosome has no respiratory protein gene. Mitochondria (eukaryote discrete powerhouses with their own minimal set of maternal genes (j) AND maximal set in the nucleus inherited from their father (i)) are practically entirely inherited from mothers, in their eggs, throughout all sexual species (biology being biology there are always outlier exceptions as above, yer know multiple sigmas out). Male respiratory protein genes are never passed on from male mitochondria; eggs consume sperm. The compatibility of respiratory protein genes is absolutely critical for respiratory protein function, the slightest mismatch results in an inviable embryo - if it hatched, it couldn’t fly, effectively if at all, so why hatch? Flight (muscle) is incredibly demanding of respiration (burning fuel with oxygen). Such mismatch is so deleterious it’s headed off at the pass. Killed by apoptosis - suicide - before hatching. It’s not mysterious. Flight muscle is maimed; its metabolic demands cannot be met.
Why? Because the respiratory protein specified by the critical combination of male sperm nuclear gene (a) and female egg mitochondrial gene (b) is maimed. Because mitochondrial biogenesis is from male nuclear (i) and female mitochondrial (j) genes remember. They must be 100% compatible. That’s entirely down to the mother.
Here it gets hypothetical:
The mother must select her mate with extreme care if her daughter is to hatch. If the detailed pattern of the plumage including its behavioural display signals the mitochondrial type, the female has something to go on. It’s not a big if. Most colour pigments are synthesized in… mitochondria (c).
Science will tell.
So where can God anthropomorphically infantilize this fully evolved process? And why?
PS Mitochondrial organelles are descended from among the oldest bacterial symbionts, 1,500 of their biogenesis genes have been absorbed by the homozygous nucleus in endosymbiotic eukaryotes. Awesome what blind, purposeless stochastic processes have achieved cumulatively at every level isn’t it? Here they are describing themselves!