The West Indian whistling duck was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Anas arborea.

In 1725 the Irish physician, naturalist and collector Hans Sloane had described and illustrated the "Whistling-Duck" in the second volume of his A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica.

[5] The English naturalist George Edwards had included a description and a hand-coloured illustration of the "Black-bill'd whistling Duck" in the fourth volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds that was published in 1751.

Edwards had been able to examine a specimen at the home of Admiral Sir Charles Wager at Stanley House in Chelsea, west London.

[6] The West Indian whistling duck is now one of eight species placed in the genus Dendrocygna that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William Swainson.

The birds are mostly nocturnal and secretive, inhabiting wooded swamps and mangroves, where this duck roosts and feeds on plant food including the fruit of the royal palm.