The Mocquard's Madagascar ground gecko was first described in 1900 by
François Mocquard under the
scientific name Phyllodactylus bastardi. The
specific name,
bastardi, is in honor of French
paleontologist Eugène Joseph Bastard (1865–1910). In 1974, several
Malagasy species assigned to
Phyllodactylus were reassigned to the
genus Paroedura, including this species (renamed as
Paroedura bastardi). The
Ibity ground gecko was initially described as a
subspecies of Mocquard's Madagascar ground gecko, but has been recognized as a separate species since 2008. The
type series is made up of 5
syntypes, and the species was formerly thought to include populations from across much of Madagascar. However, several molecular analyses of
mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences in the 2010s have found that this supposed species was actually
paraphyletic, with the
Ibity ground gecko nested among several distinct mitochondrial lineages assigned to Mocquard's Madagascar ground gecko. The type series was also found to include individuals from at least two of these lineages. These lineages are now recognized as
cryptic species within the
Paroedura bastardi species complex, and a juvenile specimen was designated as the
lectotype of
P. bastardi sensu stricto. One of the cryptic lineages was reclassified by Miralles
et al. (2021) as
Paroedura guibeae, originally described in 1974 and later synonymized with
P. bastardi, with the study supporting its resurrection as a separate species. The same study named another one of the cryptic species as
Paroedura rennerae. In 2023, the name
Paroedura manongavato was given to the cryptic lineage found in
Anja and Tsaranoro. The following
cladogram is based on a
multilocus phylogenetic analysis and shows the position of
P. bastardi among its closest relatives according to Piccoli
et al. (2023): }} ==Distribution and habitat==