The species used to be regarded as a very large member of the goshawk subfamily, Accipitrinae, but it is now believed that the resemblance to these other birds is convergent. Experts now group the red goshawk with the superficially dissimilar black-breasted buzzard "Hamirostra melanosternon" and square-tailed kite "Lophoictinia isura" as one of the Australasian old endemic raptors. It is believed that the ancestors of these birds, possibly together with a handful of species from South-east Asia and Africa, occupied Gondwana and over millions of years have diverged into their current forms.