The white-crested spadebill was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the todies in the genusTodus and coined the binomial nameTodus platyrhynchos.[2] The specific epithet is from Ancient Greekplaturrhunkhos meaning "broad-billed" or "broad-beaked" (from platus meaning "broad" or "wide" and rhunkhos meaning "bill").[3] Gmelin based his description on the "Todi Leucocephali" that had been described and illustrated in 1769 by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas.[4] Pallas did not specify a locality but this was subsequently designated as Suriname.[5] The white-crested spadebill is now one of seven spadebills placed in the genus Platyrinchus that was introduced in 1805 by Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest.[6][7]
^Pallas, Peter Simon (1769). Spicilegia zoologica : quibus novae imprimis et obscurae animalium species iconibus, descriptionibus atque commentariis illustrantur (in Latin). Berolini: Prostant apud Gottl. August. Lange. fasc. 6, p. 19, Plate 3, Fig. 2.
^Traylor, Melvin A. Jr, ed. (1979). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 8. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 111.