 Its taxonomic affinities were a long-standing mystery and it has been placed with the bulbuls, babblers and more recently with the honeyeaters, during which it was known as the Bonin honeyeater.Since 1995 it is known to be a white-eye in the family Zosteropidae, that is closely related to the golden white-eye of the Marianas Islands.The Bonin white-eye has predominately yellow and green plumage and a conspicuous black triangular patch around the eye – the eye is also surrounded by a broken white ring.