Hooded pitohui
species of bird
The hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous), is a songbird of New Guinea with black and orange plumage.
This species and its two close relatives, the variable pitohui and the brown pitohui, were the first known poisonous birds. A neurotoxin found in the birds' skin and feathers causes numbness and tingling in those touching the bird.
The hooded pitohui gets its poison from part of its diet, the Choresine beetles of the Melyridae family. These beetles 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 of 'Least Concern' on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.
