[2] Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.

The scientific name commemorates the South African entomologist Cornelis Jacobus Swierstra.

Swierstra's spurfowl was described in 1929 by the South African zoologist Austin Roberts from a specimen that had been collected in Mombola, Angola.

He coined the binomial name Chaetopus swierstrai, choosing the specific epithet to honour the South African entomologist Cornelis Jacobus Swierstra.

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