Taxonomy
English ornithologist John Latham described the Noisy Miner four times in his 1801 work Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici, sive Systematis Ornithologiae, seemingly not knowing it was the same bird in each case: the Chattering Bee-eater (Merops garrulus), Black-headed Grakle (Gracula melanocephala), Hooded Bee-eater (Merops cucullatus), and White-fronted Bee-eater (Merops albifrons). Early notes recorded its tendency to scare off prey as hunters were about to shoot. It was as the Chattering Bee-eater that it was painted between 1792 and 1797 by Thomas Watling, one of a group known collectively as the Port Jackson Painter. John Gould treated the name Merops garrulus as the original description, and renamed it Myzantha garrula in his 1865 work Handbook to the Birds of Australia, giving it the common name of Garrulous Honeyeater, and noting the alternate name of Chattering Honeyeater. He noted the colonists of Tasmania called it a miner, and aboriginal people of New South Wales called it cobaygin. Que que gang was a local aboriginal name from the Blue Mountains.
However, in the early 20th century Australian ornithologists started using the name Manorina melanocephala instead, because it was listed first by Latham in 1801. This usage did not follow the letter of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and in 2009 the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature conserved the current name by formally suppressing the name M. garrula. The species name melanocephala is derived from the Ancient Greek words melas "black", and kephale "head", referring to its black crown. Other common names include Mickey Miner and Soldierbird. Four subspecies are recognised, including subspecies leachi found in eastern Tasmania. The mainland population was split into three subspecies in 1999 by Richard Schodde—titaniota from Cape York Peninsula in Queensland as far south as Mareeba, lepidota from central Queensland and inland New South Wales west of Nyngan, and the nominate subspecies melanocephala from southeastern New South Wales, Victoria, and southern South Australia. There are broad zones where birds are intermediate between subspecies. Further study is required to settle the taxonomic status of these populations.
The Noisy Miner is one of four species in the genus Manorina in the large family of honeyeaters known as Meliphagidae, the other three being the Black-eared Miner (M. melanotis), the Yellow-throated Miner (M. flavigula), and the Bell Miner (M. melanophrys). One of the most obvious characteristics of the genus is a patch of bare yellow skin behind the eyes, which gives them an odd 'cross-eyed' look. Within the genus, the Noisy, Black-eared and Yellow-throated Miners form the subgenus Myzantha. The Noisy Miner occasionally hybridizes with the Yellow-throated Miner. Molecular analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae (pardalotes), Acanthizidae (Australian warblers, scrubwrens, thornbills, etc.), and the Maluridae (Australian fairy-wrens) in a large Meliphagoidea superfamily.
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