[3] The freckle-breasted thornbird was first described by Alcide d'Orbigny and Frédéric de Lafresnaye in 1838, from Uruguay.

[2] However, what is now the spot-breasted thornbird (P. maculipectus) was long considered a subspecies of it, but they are not closely related.

Their throat is dingy whitish, their breast light brownish with pale streaks and dark rufous speckles, their belly light brownish white, and their flanks and undertail coverts dull gray-brown.

[6][7][8] The freckle-breasted thornbird is found in northern Argentina between the provinces of Formosa and Buenos Aires, in Brazil from Paraná state south, and in most of Uruguay.

These include thickets along watercourses, gallery forest, the borders of marshes, and arid scrublands.

[6] The freckle-breasted thornbird feeds on a wide variety of arthropods including beetles, grasshoppers, and scale insects.

It captures prey by gleaning from the ground or from vegetation as high as the forest's understorey.

[6] The freckle-breasted thornbird breeds in the austral spring and summer, roughly from August to February.