The genus Drymophila was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1824.

[3] The name of the genus combines the Ancient Greek words drumos for "wood" or "copse" and philos "fond of".

Even at their highest diversity in Brazil's Mata Atlântica, the species are almost completely parapatric, in some cases like the dusky-tailed and scaled antbird even to exclusive habitat preferences.

In any case, habitat fragments strongly tend to hold at most a single species.

[9] D. devillei, the striated antbird, is a species of the southwestern quadrant of the Amazon Basin, and a disjunct population lives in north-western Ecuador and adjacent parts of Colombia.