The Bismarck pitta or New Ireland pitta ( Erythropitta novaehibernicae) is a species of pitta. It was formerly considered conspecific with the red-bellied pitta. It is Endemism to the Bismarck Archipelago in Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland . It is threatened by habitat loss.
Taxonomy
The Bismarck pitta was formally described in 1878 by the Australian zoologist Edward Pierson Ramsay from a specimen that had been collected on the island of New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago. He placed it in the genus
Pitta and coined the
binomial name Pitta novaehibernicae.
The Bismarck pitta is now placed in the genus
Erythropitta that was introduced 1854 in by Charles Lucien Bonaparte.
Four subspecies are recognised:[
]
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E. n. novaehibernicae (Ramsay, EP, 1878) – New Ireland (and probably Dyaul; northeast Bismarck Archipelago)
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E. n. extima (Ernst Mayr, 1955) – New Hanover Island (=New Hanover, central north Bismarck Archipelago)
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E. n. splendida (Mayr, 1955) – Tabar Island (north of central New Ireland, northeast Bismarck Archipelago, sometimes treated as a separate species, the Tabar pitta)
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E. n. gazellae (Oscar Neumann, 1908) – New Britain and satellites from Tolokiwa to Duke of York (southeast Bismarck Archipelago, sometimes treated as a separate species, the New Britain pitta)
