This species is found only in a small area of plateau rainforest in the Clarke Range, west of Mackay, in Queensland.

Occasionally, this species can be seen foraging on the rainforest margin and adjacent open forest.

[4] The birds at Eungella were long considered to be an outlying population of the bridled honeyeater (Bolemoreus frenatus, formerly Lichenostomus frenatus), but they were described as a separate species in 1983.

'Eungella' (/ˈjʌŋɡɛlə/ YUNG-gel-ə) is believed to be a local Aboriginal word for 'mountain of the mist' or 'land of cloud'.

[6] The Eungella honeyeater was previously placed in the genus Lichenostomus, but was moved to Bolemoreus after a molecular phylogenetic analysis, published in 2011, showed that the original genus was polyphyletic.