Fairy Pitta

About the Fairy Pitta

The fairy pitta (Pitta nympha) is a small and brightly colored species of passerine bird in the family Pittidae. Its diet mainly consists of earthworms, spiders, insects, slugs, and snails. The fairy pitta breeds in East Asia and migrates south to winter in Southeast Asia. Due to various habitat and anthropogenic disruptions, such as deforestation, wildfire, hunting, trapping, and cage-bird trade, the fairy pitta is rare and the population is declining in most places. Listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix II, this bird is classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The fairy pitta is one of around 14 species in the genus Pitta. Within the genus, it is most closely related to the hooded pitta, with these two species forming a clade that is sister to the blue-winged pitta. The fairy pitta was first described in 1847. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Indian pitta, but it has since been split due to differences in plumage, morphology, and vocalization. The generic name Pitta is from the Telugu word pitta, meaning a pretty bauble or pet, while the specific... Wikipedia →