The Nendo whistler (Pachycephala ornata) is a passerine bird in the family Pachycephalidae.

The Nendo whistler was formally described in 1932 by the American ornithologist Ernst Mayr based on specimens collected during the Whitney South Sea Expedition to the island of Nendö in the Santa Cruz Islands.

Mayr considered his specimens to be subspecies of what is now the Australian golden whistler and coined the trinomial name Pachycephala pectoralis ornata.

[1][2] The specific epithet ornata is Latin meaning "ornate", "adorned", "decorated", "splendid" or "embellished".

[3] The Nendo whistler was previously considered to be a subspecies of the Vanikoro whistler (Pachycephala vanikorensis) but is now classified as a separate species based on DNA sequence analysis and differences in plumage.