 The brolga was formerly placed in the genus "Grus", but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2010 found that the genus, as then defined, was polyphyletic.In the resulting rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, four species, including the brolga, were placed in the resurrected genus "Antigone" that had originally been erected by German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853

Two subspecies were suspected to exist