Cabinda Province
The species was first described by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1805, who named it "Malimbus nigricollis". The description was based on a specimen that had been collected by Jean Perrein near Malimbe, French for the town Malembo, in the Cabinda Province of Angola. The species epithet "nigricollis" is a contraction of two Latin words, "niger" meaning "black", and "collis", meaning "necked".