Comfortably Numb...

So while walking around campus yesterday listening to my Ipod- what I heard astounded me. I was so captivated that I stopped walking so I wouldn't miss any part of what was pumping through my ears...following the 'Podcast' that caught my attention; I retreated to a computer to research this interesting find...(Bert, I thought that this was right up your alley...)

Interview: Searching for the poisonous Pitohui (NPR Podcast)

What is so amazing to me...this Oriole-sized bird (of the family Pachycephalidae) native to the island of Papua New Guinea
is poisonous*!!

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From what I have read, the bird's feathers, skin and portions of the internal organs all contain powerful poison (neurotoxic alkaloids of the batrachotoxin group the same stuff secreted by the Colombian poison dart frogs, genus Phyllobates).
The bird may be exhibiting toxicity due to its diet...a small beetle from the corrosion genus (yup...same beetle that the frogs eat).

*In the US I would feel safe to say that there is large public confusion on the distinction between 'Poisonous' and 'Venomous'. Poisionous typically is in reference to toxic effects after ingestion (i.e. "Wow...Timmy, I shouldn't have eaten that red berry...I think it was poisonous.") Venomous is typically in reference to the ability to inject venom (i.e. "Wow...Timmy, I was just bitten by a Black Mamba, I think it is Venommmm...thump.)

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(from: Pitohui!; January 1993; Scientific American Magazine; by Marguerite Holloway)
The pitohui sounds like what it is: something to spit out. The skin, feathers and some organs of this orange-and-black New Guinean bird contain a potent poison. Although other species-including certain snakes, insects and frogs-were known to produce toxins as deterrents, it was generally thought that birds did not. So the discovery of the same device in the pitohui has ruffled some notions of avian defensive strategies and coloration.

The pitohui's defense mechanism was noticed two years ago by John P. Dumbacher, a graduate student in ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. He felt numbness and burning in his mouth when he licked his hands after handling the hooded pitohui, referred to in New Guinea as a "rubbish" bird because of the taste of its skin. Dumbacher and his colleagues recently reported in Science that three species of the genus Pitohui-the hooded, the variable and the rusty-produce a noxious chemical, which they identified in 1992.

Unrelated...but just as interesting: NPR Story on Mud Upwelling (NPR Podcast)