It was first collected by Robert Cyril Layton Perkins in the Waianae Mountains of Oahu together with Chedra microstigma in the beginning of the 20th century.

These Lord Walsingham used, both species mixed together, to construct a type series which he used to describe the new Batrachedra microstigma in 1907.

[2] Zimmerman moved the entire Chedra genus, including this species, to the Momphinae subfamily of the family Gelechiidae in 1978.

[1] This is due to remarks by Swezey when he collected the types for the taxon Batrachedra cuniculator near Honolulu.

[6] Zimmerman further theorised that the mode of invasion may have been the U.S. Army, which posted a large number of horses and mules on Oahu after the USA usurped the native government in 1893, and imported a large amount of hay and silage from the West Coast of North America as provender for this stock, in which stalks the caterpillars may have hitched a ride.