Hooded Pitohui
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| Hooded Pitohui | |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Pachycephalidae |
| Genus: | Pitohui |
| Species: | P. dichrous |
| Binomial name | |
| Pitohui dichrous Bonaparte, 1850 |
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The Hooded Pitohui, Pitohui dichrous is a songbird of New Guinea with black and orange plumage. Both male and female birds have coloured patches in their plumage.
This species and its two close relatives, the Variable Pitohui and the Brown Pitohui, were the first documented poisonous birds. A neurotoxin called homobatrachotoxin found in the birds' skin and feathers, causes numbness and tingling in those touching the bird.
The Hooded Pitohui acquires its poison from part of its diet, the Choresine beetles of the Melyridae family. These beetles[verification needed] are also a likely source of the lethal batrachotoxins found in Colombia's poison dart frogs.[1]
Common and widespread throughout New Guinea, the Hooded Pitohui is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
[edit] References
- ^ Dumbacher et al., PNAS 101(45):15857-15860
[edit] External links
- BirdLife Species Factsheet
- IUCN Red List
- The Intoxicating Birds of New Guinea by John Tidwell
- The Pitohui and the Frog by Robert B. Hole, Jr.
- Natalie Angier: Rare Bird Indeed Carries Poison in Bright Feathers. New York Times 1992-10-30
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