The scissor-tailed flycatcher was formally described in 1789 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 moucherolle à queue fourchue du Mexique" (French: "the Mexican swallow-tailed flycatcher") that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon from a specimen from Mexico and illustrated with a hand-coloured engraving by François-Nicolas Martinet.

[5][6] The scissor-tailed flycatcher is now one of 13 species placed in the kingbird genus Tyrannus that was introduced in 1799 by Bernard Germain de Lacépède.

[citation needed] They build a cup nest in isolated trees or shrubs, sometimes using artificial sites such as telephone poles near towns.

The male performs a spectacular aerial display during courtship with his long tail forks streaming out behind him.

Reported sightings record occasional stray visitors as far north as southern Canada and Upstate New York, as far east as Florida and Georgia, and in the West Indies.

A scissor-tailed flycatcher named MC Sizzy is featured in the 2015 National Geographic Kids TV show 50 Birds, 50 States.