The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS-SACC) have implemented the split making them separate species and renaming T. violaceous the Guianan trogon.

The classification schemes that treat the gartered trogon as a species assign three subspecies, the nominate T. c. caligatus, T. c. sallaei, and T. c.

The female's head and face, upper breast, and upperparts are gray; the eyering is not complete, the belly is a duller yellow than the male's, and the underside of the tail has a different pattern of black and white.

The nominate T. c. caligatus is found from the Caribbean slope of Panama's Darién Province through northern Colombia into western Venezuela.

In elevation it ranges as high as 1,400 m (4,600 ft) in Central America but is generally more common in lowlands.

It diet includes a larger amount of fruit than most other trogons but also many types of insects and other invertebrates.

The gartered trogon's song is "a long series of rapid hollow downslurred notes, kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu".