British biologist Richard Thomas Lowe was the first to scientifically describe the bigeye thresher, in papers published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (1840) and Transactions of the Zoological Society of London (1849, sometimes given as 1839). He based his description on a specimen caught off Madeira in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. However, Lowe's description was subsequently overlooked by researchers and this species was known by different names until the 1940s, when new specimens from Cuba and Florida prompted its original scientific name to be resurrected. The specific epithet superciliosus is from the Latin super meaning "above", and ciliosus meaning "eyebrow", referring to the distinct lateral grooves above the eyes.Jensen, C. Bigeye Thresher. Florida Museum of Natural History. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
