In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the piapiac in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal.

[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.

[8] A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2005 found that the piapiac from Africa was most closely related to the ground jays in the genus Podoces that inhabit Central Asia.

The bird's legs and feet are black and the iris is variable, but tends towards violet, purple or mauve with a bluish-purple outer ring.

[10] The range of the species is the tropical equatorial region of central Africa from Senegal on the west coast, eastwards in a broad band to Sudan and southern Ethiopia.