There are several species of birds that are toxic. They do not inject venom like snakes, but instead produce toxins that reside in their feathers and skin, similar to the defenses of some Colombian poison frogs. Two of the birds reside exclusively in New Guinea, being the pitohui and the ifrita.
Pitohui is actually the name of the genus, and there are six species within this genus: Pitohui kirhocephalus, or the Pitohui Variable; Dichrous pitohui, or the hooded Pitohui; Pitohui uncertain, or the white-bellied Pitohui; Pitohui ferrugineus, or the Rusty Pitohui; Pitohui cristatus, or the Crested Pitohui; and Pitohui nigrescens, or the Pitohui Negro.
Pitohuis are omnivores, they feed on both insects and vegetation. The skin and feathers of these birds contain batrachotoxins. These are used as defenses against parasites that would live on its skin and feathers, or against predators such as snakes, humans, and raptors, that would want to eat the bird. In fact, the people of Papua New Guinea call these birds “garbage birds” because they are not edible.
Interestingly, birds do not produce toxins on their own; instead, they come from a beetle that birds eat. The other bird that is toxic, the ifrite, also gets its toxins from eating the same beetles.
The ifrite is 16.5 cm long. It is carnivorous, it feeds on insects that inhabit the trunks and branches of trees. The bird is yellowish-brown in color, with a blue and black crown.
Western scientists discovered the toxicity of the pitohui while trying to free the birds from the nets they had set up to catch different birds. John Dumbacher, when he was a PhD candidate, was one of the researchers who experienced neurotoxins first hand. The scientists freed the birds from the nets, but, in the process, they were cut off by the birds’ beaks and claws. The toxin caused “numbness, burning and sneezing on contact.”