THE colourful songbirds of New Guinea are not as innocuous as they
appear.
In 1992, Jack Dumbacher of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC
discovered that the skin and feathers of Pitohui songbirds contain a
poison called a batrachotoxin. Now Dumbacher has found similar toxins in another
species, Ifrita kowaldi, he reports in a forthcoming issue of
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Batrachotoxins cause a
burning sensation like super-hot chilli—a nasty surprise for would-be
predators.
