Previous common names for this species included "flightless scaly-tail ‘squirrel’", but this is a misnomer as anomalures are very distantly related to the true squirrels of the rodent family Sciuridae and only superficially resemble them. "Z. insignis" is the only extant species in the genus "Zenkerella" and family Zenkerellidae and is the only surviving species of a lineage that diverged from the other extant anomalures (genera "Idiurus" and "Anomalurus") ~49 million years ago (Ma). Among mammals, very few species are the sole survivors of such ancient lineages, some other examples being the pen-tailed treeshrew and the monito del monte.