Tag Archives: Pittidae

Pitta anerythra ssp. pallida Rothschild

Bougainville Pitta (Pitta anerythra ssp. pallida)

The Bougainville Pitta, sometimes regarded to as a distinct species, was described in 1904, it is, or was endemic to the island of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, and is believed to be either extremely rare and threatened or as being already extinct.

The form differs from the nominate race (depicted below) by its apparently slightly larger size, its nearly completely black head with a reddish brown stripe stretching from behind the eye to the back of the head, and by its very pale buff.

The Bougainville Pitta is a groud-dwelling species that also breeds on the ground, making it highly vulnerable to predation by introduced cats and rats, it is not yet officially listed as extinct, but having not been recorded in all recent surveys, it might already be so.
 
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Black-faced Pitta (Pitta anerythra); nominate race

Depiction from: ‘Walter Rothschild; Ernst Hartert: Further contributions to our knowledge of the ornis of the Colomon Islands. Novitates Zoologicae: a journal of zoology in connection with the Tring Museum. 12(2): 243-268. 1905’

(not in copyright)

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edited: 24.04.2019