Pittas are medium-sized by passerine standards, at 15 to 25 cm (5.9–9.8 in) in length, and stocky, with strong, longish legs and long feet.

They are highly terrestrial and mostly solitary, and usually forage on wet forest floors in areas with good ground cover.

Pittas are monogamous and females lay up to six eggs in a large domed nest in a tree or shrub, or sometimes on the ground.

The main threat to pittas is habitat loss in the form of rapid deforestation, but they are also targeted by the cage-bird trade.

[4] Carl Linnaeus included the species in his revised 12th edition (1766–1768) of the Systema Naturae based on Edwards' descriptions and illustrations as well as other accounts, placing it with the Corvidae as Corvus brachyurus.

[5] Ten years later Statius Müller moved it and three other pittas to the thrush family Turdidae and the genus Turdus, due to similarities of morphology and behaviour.

[7] The name is derived from the word pitta in the Telugu language of South India meaning "small bird".

The study found that the pittas diverged from the Smithornis and Calyptomena broadbills 24 to 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene.

The pittas diverged and spread through Asia before the oscines (suborder Passeri) reached the Old World from Australia.

[13] Philip Sclater's Catalogue of the Birds of the British Museum (1888) brought the number back down to four – Anthocincla, Pitta, Eucichla, and Coracopitta.

A 1975 checklist included six genera, whereas the 2003 volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World, which covered the family, placed all the pittas in a single genus.

[17] Writing in 1998, Johannes Erritzoe stated that most contemporary authors considered the family to contain a single genus.

The first clade, using the genus name Erythropitta, included six species that had previously been considered closely related based on external features.

[9] This division of the pittas into three genera has been adopted by the International Ornithological Congress' (IOC) Birds of the World: Recommended English Names,[19] the Handbook of the Birds of the World's HBW Alive checklist, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (which follows the HBW Alive checklist).

Anatomically, pittas have large temporal fossae in the skull unlike typical perching birds.

Like the other Hydrornis pittas they are sexually dimorphic in their plumage, the females tending towards being drabber and more cryptic than the males.

The altitudinal preferences varies in the fairy pitta across its range, it can be found up to 1,300 m (4,300 ft) in Taiwan but stays at lower altitudes in Japan.

Other species make smaller or more local, and poorly understood, movements across small parts of their range,[15] including the noisy pitta of Australia.

Earthworms can become seasonally unavailable in dry conditions when the worms move deeper into the soil, and pittas also take a wide range of other invertebrate prey, including many insects groups such as termites, ants, beetles, true bugs, and lepidopterans.

[15][34] There are also records of some pittas taking plant food, such as the Carpentaria palm fruits or maize seeds.

This suggestion was supported by a study which found that the Indian pitta has the largest olfactory bulb of 25 passerines examined.

[15][35] Eight species have been recorded using stones as anvils on which to smash open snails to eat,[15] and the rainbow pitta has been observed using the root of a tree to do so.

The courtship behaviours of the family are poorly known, but the elaborate dance of the African pitta includes jumping into the air with a puffed-out breast and parachuting back down to the perch.

The nest's appearance is also difficult to distinguish from a heap of leaves pushed together by the wind;[15] a few species create a "doormat" of sticks (sometimes decorated with mammal dung[37]) by the entrance.

A study of noisy pittas found that birds in the tropics had smaller clutch sizes than those in more temperate environments.

The chicks of pittas are entirely altricial, hatching both naked and blind, and dependent upon their parents for warmth, food and nest sanitation.

They have proven difficult to maintain and breed in captivity, requiring large amounts of space, humidity and sufficient vegetation of the right kind.

[15] Their desirability as birdwatching targets was the subject of the book The Jewel Hunter (2013), in which the writer Chris Goodie recounted his attempt to see every species of pitta.

[42] Pittas are generally forest birds and, as such, are vulnerable to habitat loss caused by rapid deforestation.

[27] There are 44 species of pitta in three genera according to the International Ornithological Congress' (IOC) Birds of the World: Recommended English Names.