It is a member of the genus Pseudechis, dangerously venomous snakes that can intimidate an opponent by raising the head and presenting a hood.

[2] The suggestion of a cryptic Pseudechis species in the midwest was noticed by Ludwig Glauert in 1957, but with few available specimens the author hesitated to describe it as a new taxon.

[3][2] The morphological comparison by Smith concluded the closest affinity was with the type of the genus, P. porphyriacus, the red-bellied Pseudechis of Australia's eastern states.

A revision of the phylogeny of the "black snake" genus several years later found instead that this species was most closely related to P. australis in finer details of morphology, a position supported by comparison of results from electrophoretic analysis of blood proteins and phylogenetic indicators.

The species is similar to the common mulga P. australis, a larger and widespread snake which occurs in sympatry at parts of central Western Australia.

[2] The distribution range of P. butleri is within the Murchison region of Western Australia, where it occurs in Acacia woodlands on stony and loamy soils, and occasionally amongst rocks.

[8] Specimens of this West Australian endemic species have been recorded in Mullewa in the north, as far south as Leonora, and to the east near Laverton.