During the breeding season, males display by fluffing up their feathers and spiral in the air appearing like a green, black, yellow, and white ball.

In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the common iora in the second volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

[2] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the common iora in the genus Motacilla.

The males in breeding plumage have a very variable distribution of the black on the upperparts and can be confused with Marshall's iora, however, the latter always has white tips to the tail.

The forms in the rest of southern India are intermediate between multicolor and humei with more grey-green on the rump (formerly considered as deignani but now used for the Burmese population).

[13] During the breeding season, mainly after the monsoons, the male performs an acrobatic courtship display, darting up into the air fluffing up all his feathers, especially those on the pale green rump, then spiralling down to the original perch.

[8] Two to four greenish white eggs are laid in a small and compact cup-shaped nest made out of grass and bound with cobwebs and placed in the fork of a tree.