Like all paradise kingfishers this bird has colourful plumage with a red bill and distinctive long tail streamers.

The first formal description of the brown-headed paradise kingfisher was by the English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1880 from specimens collected near Milne Bay in southeastern New Guinea.

However, in the region around Popondetta, the capital of the province Oro of Papua New Guinea in the southeast of the island, both species occur at altitudes of 150 meters.

The tail is dark purplish blue, the bill is red and the legs and feet are pink or orange.

[8] In 1825 Nicholas Aylward Vigors introduced the genus Tanysiptera for the Paradise jacamar (Galbula dea (Linnaeus, 1758)).

[9] This name is composed of the Greek words "tany-, teinō τανυ, τεινω" which stands for "long, stretched" and "pteron πτερον" for "feather".