The only bird in the world that has poison, touching feathers can lose its life

The bird lives only on the mysterious island nation of Papua New Guinea and is the first bird in the world to be found to be poisonous.

When it comes to birds, we often think of beautiful and gentle creatures with a singing voice. But few know that in Papua New Guinea there are many birds that can kill people with poison - and it is best not to caress or intend to feed them.

The island nation has many poisonous birds

Being a country close to the equator and covered by tropical forests, the ecosystem of the island nation of Papua New Guinea is extremely diverse and least explored. Partly also because of the separation of the island nation from the rest of the world.

In the early 1990s, learner Jack Dumbacher accidentally discovered hooded pitohuis with its own memory experience. This finding is also the first scientific discovery to record the case of poisonous birds.

Birds have poison Pitohui.(Photo of Science News for Students).

Capital to this island country to study the most famous birds - the birds of paradise, but when trapped birds he caught the Hooded Pitohuis and they were scratched, bitten and injured.

Although his knowledge of birds is quite profound, but he did not expect that the mysterious bird here brought a scary venom, the subjective view lightly wounded when they were swollen so he even sucked. wound into the mouth!

That made him almost pay for his life because his mouth began to itch, hot, numb until a few hours later, he learned that he had a poison called batrachotoxin (similar to frog sting). Darts) can paralyze the nervous system when inhibiting ion production.

Where does the venom of this bird come from?

Fortunately, the amount of venom was not enough to make him lose his life, but if it was too much, it could cause paralysis, inability to breathe, bleeding from organs, destroyed organs and . death! If they eat meat they will be poisoned and naturally lose their life if they eat a lot.

The venom of this deadly bird comes from the poisonous beetles they normally eat , the bird's body has antitoxin because of the evolution but the toxins are not lost but spread throughout the bird's body like skin and fur in birds.

Pitohui is only available in Papui New Guinea.(Discover Life photo).

So just touching the hair is enough to poison you, let alone eat them. Like other poisonous species like dart frogs, this bird also possesses a showy appearance as if warning its enemies to stay away.

In addition, the characteristic odor also helps the indigenous people know that it is the poisonous bird Pitohui because of the bad smell very much like garbage, they call them "trashy birds".

Scientists were then interested in this bird and discovered that there are 6 species of birds belonging to the genus Pitohui and the most dangerous is Hooded Pitohui , they belong to the Oriolidae family.

And yet, New Guinea's jungle is also home to many other poisonous birds that researchers discovered, such as "Blue-capped Ifrita" belonging to Colluricinclidae family originating in the local language "slek-yakt". , Bitter or Little Shrikethrush.