The rainbow pitta (Pitta iris) is a small passerine bird in the pitta family, Pittidae, endemic to northern Australia, most closely related to the superb pitta of Manus Island. It has a velvet black head with chestnut stripes above the eyes, olive green upper parts, black underparts, a bright red belly and an olive green tail. An Australian endemic, it lives in the monsoon forests and in some drier eucalypt forests. Like other pittas, the rainbow pitta is a secretive and shy bird. Its diet is mainly insects, arthropods and small vertebrates. Pairs defend territories and breed during the rainy season, as that time of year provides the most food for nestlings. The female lays three to five blotched eggs inside its large domed nest. Both parents defend the nest, incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. Although the species has a small global range, it is locally common and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed it as being of least concern. Taxonomy and systematics The rainbow pitta was described by the English ornithologist and bird artist John Gould in 1842, which is based on a specimen collected on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory of Australia. The specific name iris is taken from the Ancient Greek for "rainbow"; this is the origin of the common name as well. The species was once treated as a subspecies of the noisy pitta of eastern Australia, and was also treated as being in a species complex with that species, the elegant pitta and the black-faced pitta, although that arrangement was not universally accepted. The 2006 study of the nuclear DNA of the pittas and other Old World suboscines found that its closest relative was the superb pitta of Manus Island off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The same study resulted in the pitta family being split from one genus into three, this species remaining in the genus Pitta. The species was long thought to be monotypic, but in 1999 the Western Australian population was split into the subspecies P. i. johnstoneiana by Richard Schodde and Ian J. Mason. Description The rainbow pitta is in length, and weighs . Females weigh , slightly more on average than males, which weigh . It typically stands upright while looking for food or resting, with the legs slightly bent, and the body held at a 60–70° angle. It moves