The Alpine chough was first described as "Corvus graculus" by Linnaeus in the "Systema Naturae" in 1766. It was moved to its current genus, "Pyrrhocorax", by English ornithologist Marmaduke Tunstall in his 1771 "Ornithologia Britannica", along with the only other member of the genus, the red-billed chough, " P. pyrrhocorax". The closest relatives of the choughs were formerly thought to be the typical crows, "Corvus", especially the jackdaws in the subgenus "Coloeus", but DNA and cytochrome b analysis shows that the genus "Pyrrhocorax", along with the ratchet-tailed treepie (genus "Temnurus"), diverged early from the rest of the Corvidae.