The parasitic jaeger was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Larus parasiticus.

[2] Linnaeus specified the type locality as "within the Tropic of Cancer of Europe, America and Asia" but this is now restricted to the Swedish coastline.

[3] The parasitic jaeger is now placed with the six other skuas in the genus Stercorarius that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

[4] The genus name Stercorarius is Latin and means "of dung"; the food disgorged by other birds when pursued by skuas was once thought to be excrement.

The head and neck are yellowish-white with a black cap and there is a pointed central tail projection.

Birds in North America breed in Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the Hudson Bay coast, and parts of Northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut.

In 2018, Stercorarius parasiticus was regionally uplisted to Endangered in Iceland, from Least Concern in 2000, after their numbers declined drastically in the early 2000s.