The blackbar drum was first formally described in 1988 by the American ichthyologists George C. Miller and Loren P. Woods with its type locality given as at a depth of 101 metres (331 feet) at Oregon Station 698 (30°03′36″N 86°55′36″W / 30.06000°N 86.92667°W / 30.06000; -86.92667) south of Pensacola, Florida, in the United States.

[5] The blackbar drum's specific name honors Tomio Iwamoto of the California Academy of Sciences, who Miller and Woods described as a "good friend" and who participated in the expedition on which the type specimen was collected.

Juveniles are whiter in color with a slender black bar down the middle of the snout and another between the eyes with the same stripes on the body as the adults.

[2] The blackbar drum is found in the western Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina south into the Gulf of Mexico, although it is absent from Cuba, and along the Caribbean coast of Central and northern South America from southern Nicaragua to the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the habitat of this fish is shallow, coastal waters over sandy, muddy or rocky substrates.