Re: *Uatchitodon*?

[Mickey Rowe <rowe@psych.ucsb.edu>]

This was held back by a technical glitch -- MPR

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  Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 15:00:03 +0100
  To: Dinosaur@usc.edu
  From: Gautam Majumdar <gmajumdar@gmajumdar.freeuk.com>
  Subject: Re: *Uatchitodon*?

  In article <002101c24c76$fc7875c0$b4432fd5@chello.at>, David Marjanovic
  <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> writes
  >> I can't recall what species of bird it was though
  >
  >Those of the genus *Pitohui*. Feathers, skin and, as I've read only once,
  >the muscles are toxic. The poison is homobatrachotoxin, exactly the same as
  >that of some South American tree frogs. Amazing convergence.

  A second genus of bird from Papua (Ifrita) has also been found to have
  such poison. Four species of Pitohui & one species of Ifrita were found
  to have several isomers of batrachotoxin & homobatrachotoxin present in
  their feather. Though initially it was thought that their skin & even
  muscles also contain the toxins, recent work suggests that these toxins
  are present only in their feather.

  Dumbacher J P, Spande T F, Daly J W, Batrachotoxin alkaloids from
  passerine birds: A second toxic bird genus (Ifrita kowaldi) from New
  Guinea, PNAS 2000; 97: 12970-75


  -- 
  Gautam Majumdar
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