It was first described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, its specific epithet from the Latin adjective sanguinolentus, "bloodied", referring to its red plumage.

This species is sometimes placed in a genus of its own as Phlogothraupis sanguinolenta,[2] and a genetic study suggests that it is less closely related to the other Ramphocelus tanagers than they are to each other.

The adult plumage is black with a red collar covering the nape, neck, and breast[2] (remarkably similar to the pattern of the male crimson-collared grosbeak).

The crimson-collared tanager ranges from southern Veracruz and northern Oaxaca in Mexico through the Atlantic slope of Central America,[2] to the highlands of western Panama.

The nest is a cup built of such materials as moss, rootlets[2] and strips of large leaves such as banana or Heliconia[citation needed], and is placed at middle height in a tree at a forest edge.