The gray kingbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[4] Gmelin based his description on "Le tyran de S. Domingue" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

The sexes are similar, but young birds have rufous edges on the wing coverts, rump and tail.

It breeds from the extreme southeast of the United States, mainly in Florida, as well as Central America, and through the West Indies south to Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, the Guianas, and Colombia.

Gray kingbirds wait on an exposed perch high in a tree, occasionally sallying out to feed on insects (such as bees, dragonflies, wasps and beetles), their staple diet.