The description as a new species was published in 2014 by McKenzie, Reardon, & Adams, separating them from a poorly understood population known as the planiceps group.

[2] The eponym for the species name "kitcheneri" is Darrell Kitchener "for his prolific contribution to elucidating the systematics of Indo-Australian mammals, especially bats".

[2] Mormopterus kitcheneri has an "unusually flattened skull", similar to the southern species M. planiceps and M. petersi, the inland free-tailed bat.

[7] The area of occupancy has not been determined, but reasonable assumed to have been greatly reduced by the extensive removal of habitat during the British colonisation of Southwest Australia.

The species is recorded at remnant bushland and roosting in urban structures, and regularly appears in surveys within its distribution range.

[8] It forages for its insect prey in uncluttered air spaces, open or semi-open woodlands; the climate of the recorded locations is mesic or semiarid habitat.