Nicobar Hooded Pitta Pitta abbotti, Minahasa Hooded Pitta P. forsteni, Eastern Hooded Pitta P. novaeguineae, and Biak Hooded Pitta P. rosenbergii are split from Western Hooded (formerly Hooded) Pitta P. sordida (Clements 2007:266–267)

Summary: The Hooded Pitta is now split into Western Hooded, Nicobar Hooded, Minahasa Hooded, Eastern Hooded, and Biak Hooded Pittas, each named for their geographical range.

Details: Several taxa long subsumed within the Hooded Pitta Pitta sordida complex (e.g., Mayr 1979) were originally described as full species, including P. abbotti of the southern Nicobar Islands; P. forsteni of the Minahasa Peninsula, northern Sulawesi; P. novaeguineae of the New Guinea region, and P. rosenbergii of Biak, off northwestern New Guinea. Each of these have been shown in integrative taxonomic analyses (Ericson et al. 2019, Rasmussen et al. 2020) to be vocally and morphologically distinct in congruence with genetic structure of the complex, and hence WGAC and Clements et al. (2023) adopt a five-species complex. One further genetic cluster identified in Ericson et al. (2019), that of the Philippines, does not have morphological or vocal support and thus is not considered speciated by WGAC or Clements et al. (2023).

English names: For each species in this complex, geographic names are compounded with “Hooded” to reduce confusion with other regional pitta species. The name Eastern Hooded Pitta for the New Guinea complex (except Biak P. rosenbergii), previously used by del Hoyo and Collar (2016), minimizes confusion with the Erythropitta pittas so is adopted here.