[1] The only known species, the type species Tototlmimus packardensis, was formally described in October 2015 by Claudia Inés Serrano-Brañas, Esperanza Torres-Rodríguez, Paola Carolina Reyes-Luna, Ixchel González-Ramírez and Carlos González-León; because the online publication was not registered in ZooBank, the name was only validly published when the paper was printed in March 2016.

The genus name is derived from the Nahuatl word tototl, 'bird', and the Latin mimus, 'mimic' (from Greek μῖμος).

[1] The fossil specimen, holotype ERNO 8553, was found in the northeastern Mexican state of Sonora, in the Cabullona Group, in a bed of the Packard Shale which may date from the late Campanian, 72 million years ago.

The unguals, the bones of the foot claws, are narrow and asymmetric with shallow grooves on both sides.

[1] Cladogram based on the analysis by Serrano-Brañas et al., 2015: Archaeornithomimus Sinornithomimus Gallimimus Anserimimus Struthiomimus Tototlmimus Ornithomimus