 The species was first collected by Thomas Vernon Wollaston, who visited Lundy in 1844 and 1845. He collected specimens of 153 species of beetle, including a specimen of the species that later became known as P. luridipennis. Charles Owen Waterhouse listed the species in volume 2 of the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine as "Psylliodes 6 sp. —?", and it was formally described and named by Austrian entomologist Franz Kutschera in the journal Wiener Entomologische Monatschrift in 1864.
