[6] Other members of Malaconotoidea include the helmet shrikes, the batises, the vangas, the Asian ioras, the African bushshrikes, and the woodswallows.

[1] It is hypothesized that the last common ancestor of Artamidae, vangas, and cracticids (alive in the Paleogene) may have been stout with long pointy wings, a decurved bill, and sexually monomorphic.

[7] This remains disputed however, as recent mitochondrial phylogeny instead supports a sister relationship between cracticids and African bushshrikes and allies.

[8] Within the cracticids, the morphology of the tarsometatarsus suggests the Kurrartapu is more closely related to currawongs and butcherbirds,[1] who diverged likely in the mid Miocene.

[10] During the early Miocene, fossils suggest central Australian lakes and swamps hosted sclerophyll forests, dominated by acacia, casuarina, and eucalyptus.

Similar to the non-migratory black butcherbird,[12] peltops,[13] and extant Australian magpie[14] one might assume the Kurrartapu was equally sedentary, although contemporary currawongs do undertake altitudinal migration.

[15][16][17] The Kurrartapus likely diminished with the rainforest habitat loss accompanying increasing aridification and expansion of the savannas that occurred in the mid and late miocene.

[9] Gondwana's break-up and the movement of the continents altered ocean currents and precipitated the icehouse conditions that brought reduced rainfall, cool temperatures, and extinction to many lineages.

[22] It is likely that Kurrartapus were hoppers, and navigated the ground by moving legs in parallel synchronization, as do butcherbirds and currawongs, although Australian magpies have developed bipedalism, able to walk and sprint.

[5] Like other cracticids, they were probably predatory omnivores, generalists and active in the daytime, feeding mainly on invertebrates and carrion, though consuming smaller vertebrates and fruits as well.