Noisy Pitta

About the Noisy Pitta

The noisy pitta (Pitta versicolor) is a species of bird in the family Pittidae. The noisy pitta is found in eastern Australia and southern New Guinea. It eats earthworms, insects and snails. Its natural habitats are temperate forests, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.

Some authorities believe that the noisy pitta is conspecific with the elegant pitta (Pitta elegans) of Indonesia, and/or with the rainbow pitta (Pitta iris) from the Northern Territory, but it is usually regarded as forming a superspecies with these two species and with the black-faced pitta (Pitta anerythra) of the Solomon Islands. Not all authorities agree that all these species are related; Erritzoe and Erritzoe (1998) dispute the inclusion of the rainbow pitta in this superspecies.

There are two subspecies with a demarcation line around Cairns. Pitta versicolor simillima occurs in northern Queensland and the islands of the Torres Strait. The members of this subspecies migrate to the southern part of Papua New Guinea. The nominate race P. v. versicolor is found in the rest of Queensland and southward to the Hunter River in New South Wales... Wikipedia →