The red-necked spurfowl was described in 1776 by the German zoologist Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller and given the binomial name Tetrao afer.

[5] The species is now placed in the genus Pternistis that was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Georg Wagler in 1832.

[9] It is a generally dark spurfowl, brown above and black-streaked grey or white underparts.

The red-necked spurfowl is a wary species, keeping to deep cover, although it sometimes feeds in open scrub or cultivation if disturbance is limited and there are thickets nearby.

Widespread and common throughout its large range, the red-necked spurfowl is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.