Family PITTIDAE Swainson, 1831

Museums

Regional Maps

• 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).'

Diagnosis References

Ames, P.L. 1971. The Morphology of the Syrinx in Passerine Birds. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Bulletin 37: vi 194 pp. 21 pls

Bock, W.J. 1962. The pneumatic fossa of the humerus in the Passeres. Auk 79: 425-443

Feduccia, J. 1974. Morphology of the bony stapes in New and Old World suboscines: new evidence for common ancestry. Auk 91: 427-429

Feduccia, J. 1975. Morphology of the bony stapes in the Menuridae and Acanthisittidae: evidence for oscine affinities. Wilson Bulletin 87: 418-420

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.

Sibley, C.G. 1970. A comparative study of the egg-white proteins of passerine birds. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Bulletin 32: 1-131

Sibley, C.G. & Ahlquist, J.E. 1990. Phylogeny and Classification of Birds. A Study in Molecular Evolution. New Haven : Yale University Press xxiii 976 pp.

General References

Dickinson, E.C. (ed.) 2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. London : Christopher Helm 1039 pp.

Mayr, E. 1979. Family Pittidae. pp. 310-329 in Traynor, M.A. Jr (ed.). Check-list of Birds of the World. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Museum of Comparative Zoology Vol. 8 xv + 365 pp.

History of changes