[4] The black-faced hawk (Leucopternis melanops) is very similar in overall coloration, but it is much smaller and has a black tail with a single bold white bar in the middle.

[3] This species occurs from Oaxaca to Veracruz in southern Mexico southwards throughout Central America, with the exception of most of El Salvador and the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.

A black-and-white hawk-eagle population is also found in the Loreto Region of NE Peru; it is not known in how far this is isolated from the rest of the bird's range.

The species is absent from the western Amazon basin, and even though it might not common in the lands to the east (e.g. in Minas Gerais),[3][5] there has been at least one nest described in the region.

Its range does not extend very far into the uplands, but one individual was sighted at an altitude of about 4,000 ft (1,200 m) ASL in the Buena Vista Nature Reserve in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

But ground- and waterbirds like tinamous, chachalacas, wood quails, cormorants and the highly threatened Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus) have also been recorded as its prey.

[3][8] Its preferred hunting technique is to soar high until it has spotted suitable prey, and then dive down on it, usually right into the forest canopy, but it has also been observed to catch a white woodpecker (Melanerpes candidus) that had been mobbing it in mid-air, after launching itself from its perch.

While the variety of habitat types in which it is found suggests that it is not particularly susceptible to changes in land use, it is apparently still a rare and local species almost anywhere in its range.

[1][3][7][9] This species is often placed in the monotypic genus Spizastur, but has recently been moved to Spizaetus e.g. by the American Ornithologists' Union, as it appears that the ornate hawk-eagle (S. ornatus) is its sister taxon.

[13] However, they overlooked that Buteo melanoleucus was the original name of the black-and-white hawk-eagle and thus as a senior homonym could not be applied to the later-described species.