The bill and feet are yellow, and the tail, long and broad as usual for trogons, has the underside narrowly barred with black and white.

The female's head is brown with less ornamental bare skin and its throat and breast are light cinnamon; otherwise it resembles the male.

The bar-tailed trogon is found in Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

[1] It lives in forests; at altitudes between 900 and 3,000 m (3,000 and 9,800 ft),[1] is typically higher than that of the Narina trogon, but the two occur together in some places.

[5] The IUCN classifies the bar-tailed trogon as Least Concern but the species is experiencing a decreasing trend due to habitat destruction.