In 1989, while searching for elusive birds of paradise, John Dumbacher of the California Academy of Sciences accidentally discovered that the pitohui, a songbird native to Papua New Guinea, carries the same lethal toxin as Amazonian poison dart frogs. This revelation baffled the scientific community. Twelve years later his colleague, naturalist Avit Wako, determined that the poison comes from the beetles the birds consume.

John Dumbacher