NIFarious Ideas: Poisonous Birds?!

In this presentation, Discovery: First Scientifically Confirmed Poisonous Bird, Dr. Jack Dumbacher explains the discovery of the first poisonous birds - the hooded pitohui, native to New Guinea.



Possessing a neurotoxin of the Batrachotoxin family, these birds can rub off a steroid compound that blocks sodium ion channels. This prevents the neuron from returning to polarized resting state, and eventually kills predators or prey by eliminating neurotransmission to the muscles (i.e. heart). It is believed that the birds became poisonous due to their dietary intake of a beetle which contained the barachotoxin, essentially seeping the alkaloid out through their skin. Either way - the first scientifically confirmed poisonous bird?.....now thats dangerous, and for that we thank you hooded pitohui.

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NIFarious Ideas is a regular weekly column on the NIF Blog that appears every Friday. We seek to highlight the avant-garde, the dangerous, the progressive, the cutting edge in software tools, databasing, ontologies, searching, data collecting and distributing, and of course, neuroscience trends. Join us each Friday!