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Family PITTIDAE Swainson, 1831


Compiler and date details

R. Schodde & I.J. Mason, CSIRO Australian National Wildlife Collection, Canberra, ACT, Australia; updated and upgraded by N.W. Longmore, Museum Victoria, 2006

  • Pittidae Swainson, 1831.

 

Introduction

Pittidae are a family with terrestrial habits, found in the tropics of the Old World from Africa, Asia, many south-west Pacific Islands and Australia (Dickinson 2003). The family is monogeneric and contains 30 species, consisting of 96 ultrataxa. The greatest diversity of species (24), occur in Asia. Although by implication of their physical structure pittids are terrestial, their arboreal habits are well documented. Trees may be used for roosting stations or as calling points by many species within the genus.

Pittids feed primarily on invertebrates from in the leaf litter of wet forests. Anvils, rocks or logs, are used by many of pittas as feeding stations (identified by discarded snail shells associated with them). The pittas nest on or near to the ground, building a semi-domed structure in the buttress of large trees or in similar cavities. Newly hatched young are altricial.

Three species occur naturally in Australia while a fourth, Pitta moluccensis, that occurs naturally in South-east Asia, has been recorded sporadically from Western Australia. One Australian species, P. iris, is an Australian endemic; another P. versicolor is shared with New Guinea; the third, P. erythrogaster, is widely distributed throughout South-east Asia from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands, and Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Pitta erythrogaster includes 26 recognised ultrataxa (Mayr 1979).

 

Excluded Taxa

Vagrant Species

CAVS:8085
PITTIDAE: Pitta (Pitta) moluccensis moluccensis (P.L.S. Müller, 1776) [Indonesian Blue-winged Pitta]

CAVS:0880
PITTIDAE: Pitta (Pitta) moluccensis (P.L.S. Müller, 1776) [Blue-winged Pitta; vagrant to Christmas Island and WA] — Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.; Christidis, L. & Boles, W.E. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing 288 pp. [29, 178]

CAVS:8086
PITTIDAE: Pitta nympha Temminck & Schlegel, 1850 [Fairy Pitta]

 

Diagnosis

'Morphologically, pittas are characterised, inter alia, by their rounded wings with a fully-developed 10th (outermost) primary but 9 secondaries (10th vestigial), single entire plate on both anterior and posterior faces of the tarsus (bilaminate planta tarsi), tracheo-bronchial syrinx of free rings without pessulus and with simple musculature from which intrinsic muscles are missing, large temporal fossae extending across the occipital region of the skull, a modified perforate stapedial plate in the ear, and thighs vascularized primarily by the sciatic artery (from Sibley 1970; Ames 1971; Feduccia 1974, 1975; Sibley & Ahlquist 1990). Like corvoids but unlike passeroids, pittas have a single deep, trabeculated fossa at the head of the humerus (Bock 1962).'

 

History of changes

Note that this list may be incomplete for dates prior to September 2013.
Published As part of group Action Date Action Type Compiler(s)
10-Nov-2020 AVES 15-Sep-2022 MODIFIED
10-Nov-2015 PITTIDAE Swainson, 1831 15-Sep-2022 MODIFIED
12-Feb-2010 (import)