[4][5] Males are larger than females[3][5] and look quite different; one Japanese expert when sent some of the first specimens collected for scientific study suggested that they were different species.

[5] Mystacinobia was first discovered in 1958, and the first specimen was catalogued for analysis by zoologist P. D. Dwyer in 1962 after it dropped out of the fur of a short-tailed bat he was looking after.

[5] Two years later, on 14 March 1975, the kauri tree the bats had moved into was blown over, as Cyclone Allison swept through Northland.

[6] Entomologist Beverly Holloway named and described the bat fly as the sole member of its family (Mystacinobiidae) and genus (Mystacinobia), making both of these monotypic.

The species is considered to be a sister of the Ulurumyia macalpinei that breeds in dung and is known as "McAlpine's fly" which is placed in another monotypic family.