The Evolution of Poisonous Birds

tags: evolution, Phylogeny, ornithology, chemical defense, Batrachotoxin, poisonous birds, Pitohui, Ifrita, Pachycephalidae, New Guinea

The Hooded Pitohui, Pitohui dichrous, endemic to New Guinea, is very unusual because it has poisonous plumage.

Image: John Dumbacher.

I have been in love with New Guinea since I first read about it as a kid. Everything about this tropical island is exotic and fascinating to me, from the large numbers of endemic bird and plant species to the tremendous number of spoken languages -- more than anywhere else on the planet. So I was immediately interested to learn about Jack Dumbacher's adventures there between 1989 and 1991. At the time of his first visit, he was a grad student in ornithology who was catching birds of paradise as part of a National Geographic Society expedition -- what I wouldn't have given to be part of that! As the story goes, Dumbacher removed several fiesty orange-and-black birds that had become accidentally entangled in his mist nets when he stopped to lick the wounds on his hands. Shockingly, his lips and mouth became numb: he had been poisoned.

"I was scared and I tried not to swallow," he recalled. "I figured I had probably brushed up against some poisonous tree."

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