Those two species were originally placed in the New World wood warbler family Parulidae, but taxonomists were unsure they belonged there.

DNA evidence published in the early 2010s showed they were not related to other wood warblers and in 2017, they were moved to the newly created family Phaenicophilidae.

The two species in the genus Phaenicophilus were also moved there from the "true" tanager family Thraupidae.

The back and rump is olive and the tail an almost-black dark gray with white spots on the tips of the outer feathers.

[4] The white-winged warbler is limited to montane regions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

It was a cup of moss, leaves, lichen, and other plant material lined with small fibers and placed in a vine thicket 2.5 m (8 ft) above the ground.

As of late 2022, xeno-canto had only two recordings of white-winged warbler vocalization; the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library had several more.

[4] The IUCN originally assessed the white-winged warbler as Threatened but has classed it as Vulnerable since 1994.