Pitohui

Pitohuis
Hooded pitohui
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes

The pitohuis are birds endemic to New Guinea.

Six species were formerly classified together in the genus Pitohui, in the family Pachycephalidae. They were separated in 2013 when the genus and two of the species were re-classified in the family Oriolidae and three species remained in Pachycephalidae in the new genera of Melanorectes and Pseudorectes. One species was placed in the family Oreoicidae.

The species are now separated into three families as follows:

They are brightly coloured, omnivorous birds. The hooded pitohui is brightly coloured, with 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.

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, 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.

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Wikipedia