In 1874, the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards connected Leguat's account with three subfossil bones (a sternum, a tarsometatarsus, and a fragmentary skull) found in caves of the Plaine Corail region, Rodrigues. He recognised their similarity to those of the red rail, while noting it supposedly had a straighter beak (as described by Leguat). Milne-Edwards coined the generic name "Erythromachus" from the Greek words "eruthros", "red", and "makhç", "battle" (also translated as "hostile to red"), in reference to its attraction to red objects, and the specific name is in honour of Leguat. The name "Erythromachus" was incorrectly explained as referring to the Erythraean sea by the American ornithologist Charles Wallace Richmond in 1908. The name "Miserythrus", from "red" and "hatred", was used by the English ornithologist Alfred Newton in 1874 (originally only in a manuscript), and also refers to the rail's behaviour towards red, but as a newer name, it is a junior synonym. Milne-Edwards did not select a holotype specimen for the species from the bones he had loaned from Cambridge University Museum of Zoology for his study, but a syntype series was later listed from specimens there, presumably by A. Newton.