the rare and ill researched Minahasa hooded pitta. mainly terrestrial and brilliantly colored, as is common amongst pittas. it lives exclusively on the Minahasa penninsula, northernmost on the island of Sulawesi in central Indonesia. the Minahasa penninsula is, in turn, named for the Minahasa, an umbrella title encompassing the nine Indigenous ethnic groups who live there.
formerly, this little bird was considered a subspecies of a vast species complex, which ranged from southern Asia to the island of New Guinea. the "hooded pitta" has since been split into five species and many more subspecies after genetic analysis proved they weren't nearly as closely related as was once believed. this division happened as recently as around 2019, and debate reaches even later! as such, today's critter had previously garnered very little interest in birders, being only an out-of-the-way subspecies of a very widespread bird. the majority of its eBird photo uploads have happened in the years since it was declared a distinct species; before that happened, it had only one photo from 2006! (it's the one on the bottommost right.) from what we know, it lives in damp lowland forests, and that's about it. maybe it eats bugs. who knows.
18 June 2026
