Pitohui

Description

Pitohuis are brightly coloured, omnivorous birds. The hooded pitohui has a brick red belly and a jet-black head. The variable pitohui, as its name implies, exists in many different forms, and 20 subspecies with different plumage patterns have been named. Two of them, however, closely resemble the hooded pitohui.

Behaviour and ecology

The skin and feathers of some pitohuis, especially the variable and hooded pitohuis, contain powerful neurotoxic alkaloids of the batrachotoxin group (also secreted by the Colombian poison dart frogs, genus Phyllobates). These are believed to serve the birds as a chemical defence, either against ectoparasites or against visually guided predators such as snakes, raptors or humans. The birds probably do not produce batrachotoxin themselves. The toxins most likely come from the beetle genus Choresine, a part of the birds' diets.

The birds' bright colours are suggested to be an example of aposematism (warning colouration), and the similarity of the hooded pitohui and some forms of the variable pitohui might then be an example of Müllerian mimicry, in which dangerous species gain a mutual advantage by sharing colouration, so an encounter with either species trains a predator to avoid both.

Relationship to humans

Due to the toxicity of these birds, Papua New Guineans call the pitohuis rubbish birds and do not eat them; in desperate times, however, they can be consumed only after the feathers and skin have been removed and the flesh is coated in charcoal and then roasted.