Toxic birds????

***I had a reader correct my post just a little.  It seems as though I had my genus/family labels backwards.  With a post like this, I like to have the correct information so I am glad my reader pointed this out to me.  I would love to give you credit reader for the corrections if you would like.  The post was annomous so I do not know who to give credit to.  Leave me a comment if you want like, and I will gladly give you credit for it. Thank you!

I never knew that a bird could be toxic! I guess until I had a bird-loving girl obsessed with learning all about birds, I never thought about it.  So a few days ago, we happened to find that there a few species of birds from genus Pitohui (Pachycephalidae-family) that are highly toxic.  These Pitohui birds are the first ever documented poisonous birds.  They are toxic not because they were created that way but because they eat a species of toxic beetles from the Choresine genus (Melyridae-family) of beetles.  Both the Pitohui and the beetles from the Choresine genus are native to New Guinea.  The Pitohui bird is New Guinea's most abundant bird, and believe it or not, if cooked in the correct manner, the natives of New Guinea can eat them.  I think I will pass thank you.  The Travel Channel has a video of a native, Mike Wike, showing the proper way to prepare the Pitohui for dinner.  It is a little gross but interesting.  I think I will pass even more now that I have seen that video.

picture from Avian Web

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Avian Web

Read more about the Melyridae beetles here.