It is a resident or partially migratory species found in wooded habitats in India and Southeast Asia.

The chestnut-tailed starling was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin based his account on the "Le Martin Vieillard de la côte de Malabar" that had been described in 1782 by the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat in his book Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine.

However, a molecular study found the genetic divergence between S. blythii not significantly greater (between 0.2% and 0.8%) than between the sisters S. m. malabarica of northern India and S. m. nemoricola of Burma and Vietnam.

The nominate and nemoricola have a light grey head with whitish streaking (especially on crown and collar region).