Air Date: Week of September 5, 2025

A hooded pitohui perches on a human hand. (Photo: Benjamin Freeman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

Nature has been tinkering with biology and chemistry for as long as life has existed on this planet. And as BirdNote®’s Michael Stein reports, some species have evolved to make use of special chemical weapons – a.k.a., poison.

Transcript

DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering.

BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran.

[BIRDNOTE THEME]

BLETRAN: Before the break we heard about a biotech breakthrough using bacteria and a gene from mushrooms to turn plastic into a painkiller. It’s very impressive and novel, but of course, nature herself has been tinkering with biology and chemistry for as long as life has existed on this planet. And some species have evolved to make use of special chemical weapons – a.k.a., venom or poison. Here’s BirdNote’s Michael Stein with more.

BirdNote®
Poisonous Birds
Written by Conor Gearin

STEIN: The world is full of poisonous creatures. Some butterflies, beetles and frogs use bright colors to warn birds and other predators that they’re full of toxins. But you might be surprised to learn that some birds are poisonous, too.

[Hooded Pitohui song]

The Hooded Pitohui is a bird that lives in New Guinea and eats a toxic beetle. The pitohuis aren’t sensitive to the beetle’s toxin, so they can accumulate large amounts of it in their skin and feathers. Scientists examined the chemicals from pitohui feathers and identified the same type of toxin found in poison-dart frogs. Like the birds, the frogs may also gain their chemical defenses from eating insects. But pitohuis aren’t the only birds that pack a toxic punch. When Ruffed Grouse eat a plant called mountain laurel, they pick up a poisonous compound that can make them an unappetizing meal for a fox or a human hunter.

[Ruffed Grouse calls]

And quail in the Eastern Hemisphere sometimes snack on hemlock, turning them into a very upsetting dinner item.

[Common Quail calls]

Many predators like to eat birds, making the world a pretty dangerous place for them. But evolution has made some birds a little dangerous, too.

[Hooded Pitohui song]

I’m Michael Stein.

###
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Ruffed Grouse ML 446222541 recorded by Andrew Spencer, and Common Quail ML 354955891 recorded by Hans Norelius.
Hooded Pitohui Xeno Canto 750410 recorded by Iain Woxvold.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote March 2023/2025
Narrator: Michael Stein
ID# poison-01-2023-03-14 poison-01
Reference:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25839151/
https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/4037/Dumbacher1992.pdf…;
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know/pitohui-bird-contains-de…
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13181-022-00891-6

BELTRAN: For pictures, migrate on over to the Living on Earth website, loe.org.

 

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