White based on a specimen collected near Balovale (now the town of Zambezi) in northwest Zambia near the border with Angola.

He considered it to be a subspecies of the rufous-naped lark and coined the trinomial name Mirafra africana kabalii.

[1][2] He chose the specific epithet to honour a local collector and hunter Kabali Muzeya.

[3] The plains lark is now treated as a separate species and placed in the genus Corypha.

This is based on the results of two molecular phylogenetic studies by a team of ornithologists led by Per Alström that were published in 2023 and 2024.