[4] The ornate stipplethroat was described by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1853 and given the binomial name Formicivora ornata.

All were eventually named "stipplethroats" to highlight a common feature and to set them apart from Myrmotherula antwrens.

[6][7][8] The International Ornithological Committee, the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society recognize these five subspecies:[4][9][6] However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) treats E. o. hoffmannsi as a species called the "eastern ornate stipplethroat".

Adult males of the nominate subspecies E. o. ornata have a gray head, neck, and upper back.

Females have gray to grayish olive-brown upperparts and cinnamon-rufous tinged buff underparts.

They also have less rufous chestnut on their upperparts than the nominate, and their wing coverts have buff spots instead of white.

It typically forages singly, in pairs, or in small family groups, and usually as part of a mixed-species feeding flock.

A nest of subspecies E. o. hoffmannsi was an open cup of thin roots, dry leaves, and twigs suspended in a branch fork.

One of E. o. atrogularis was dome-shaped with a side entrance, and made of dead leaves, rootlets, and moss.

[13] The IUCN follows HBW taxonomy and so has separately assessed the "western" and "eastern" ornate stipplethroats.

[1][2] The species is considered fairly common but local in most of its range though scarce in Ecuador and uncommon in Colombia.