Except for the central pair, the tail feathers are much whiter than in the northern wheatear, the white on the inner web often extending to the tip.

In 1743 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the western black-eared wheatear in his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

[2] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the western black-eared wheatear with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla.

[4] The western black-eared wheatear is now placed in the genus Oenanthe that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot.

[6][7] The genus name Oenanthe is derived from the Ancient Greek oenos (οίνος) "wine" and anthos (ανθός) "flower".