It has a high mortality rate due to its inability to traverse across a matrix.

[2] The banded yellow robin was described by the Australian zoologist, Edward Pierson Ramsay, in 1879, from a specimen collected in southeastern New Guinea.

[4] It was moved to the resurrected genus Gennaeodryas, based on the results of a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2011.

[5][6] The genus Gennaeodryas had been introduced by the Australian ornithologist, Gregory Mathews, in 1920.

[7] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek gennaios 'noble' or 'high-born' with dryad 'tree-nymph'.