[4][5] Originally described as Seisura nana by John Gould in 1870, the paperbark flycatcher was long treated as a subspecies of the restless flycatcher (M. inquieta), until 1999 when Schodde and Mason identified the distinctness and lack of intergrading in closely situated populations of the two parapatric taxa.

It is a smaller bird, at only two-thirds the weight of its southern relative, and has a proportionately shorter and broader bill, with longer and stouter rictal bristles.

[5] The flycatcher is found in northern Australia, from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, across the Top End of the Northern Territory, to the Gulf Country and south-western Cape York Peninsula of north-west Queensland, with a population on Saibai Island in Torres Strait.

It is also found in southern New Guinea from Merauke eastwards to the Bensbach River in the Middle Fly District.

The nest is a neat cup built of bark shreds and grass stems in the fork of a dead shrub near water.