The Pittas of Halmahera

There are two species of pittas on Halmahera. One is the North Moluccan Pitta, Erythropitta rufiventris.

It is one of the 14 species in the genus Erythropitta and looks quite similar to many of the other pittas in this genus. The unifying feature of the genus is their red belly, unsurprisingly, as eruthros means red, and pitta means, well, pitta.

And for those a bit slow on the uptake, the species name rufiventris means red-bellied.

While it is listed as Least Concern, its range suffers from logging and agricultural expansion as well as trapping for the cagebird trade. 

For videos of the species, see here and here (includes the bird making its characteristic call) and here.

The above is the subspecies Erythropitta rufiventris rufiventris (indicating for a third time in the name that the bird is red, hmm). On Ternate, there is another subspecies, Erythropitta rufiventris cyanonota (cyanonota means dark-blue-backed) – it is shown below.

However, I find the distinctions between the subspecies as shown in the HBW much clearer than those between the individual birds I saw in both locations.

The second pitta species on Halmahera, the Ivory-breasted Pitta, looks a lot more unique.

It is a species in another pitta genus, the one unimaginatively named Pitta.

While one would think that the Giant Pitta (not shown here) should be the biggest pitta, it is in fact the Ivory-breasted Pitta …

… as suggested by the scientific name Pitta maxima.

In contrast to the usual entries in the HBW, the one on this species actually shows a certain amount of enthusiasm for the species described: “Even amongst a family of famously colorful and charismatic species, the Ivory-breasted Pitta (Pitta maxima) stands out in the crowd”.

The species may have a slightly better chance of surviving than other pittas as according to the HBW, it is less reliant on primary forest and has been recorded from all forest types and even some cultivated areas.

A drawing of the Ivory-breasted Pitta by John Gould can be found here – not his best work, I think. But there is so little scientific information on the species that I have to use this bit as well in order to be able to show enough photos.

Both the North Moluccan Pitta and the Ivory-breasted Pitta discussed here are threatened by increased Nickel mining, mainly by Chinese companies. In fact, if you look at older Halmahera trip reports, you will find that birders used to stay at the Weda Resort – this place has closed down as the owner sold the place to a Nickel mining company. As Nickel is an important raw material for EV batteries and annual demand is growing at about 8% per year, this threat to Halmahera birds is likely to increase further.