the murid was described by oldfield thomas in 1886. the description was from specimens in the manipur collection of allan octavian hume. it was donated to the british museum (natural history) after hume's life's work in ornithological notes were sold by a servant as waste paper. the manipur bush rat was named in honour of him. the collection has two male and two female specimens. it was recorded to be collected on 23 march 1881 from moirang in manipur. it was the type locality for this species.