It is widely distributed across the Amazon rainforest with a disjunct population on the southeast coast of Brazil.

The green-backed trogon was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[2] Linnaeus based his description on "Le couroucou verd de Cayenne" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

[5] On the same page of his Systema Naturae Linnaeus introduced the binomial name Trogon strigilatus for the female of this species.

In the male the head and upper breast are dark blue (appears blackish in poor light), and the back is green.

The female green-backed trogon resembles the male, but has a grey back, head and breast, and distinct black-and-white barring mainly to the outer webs of each tail feather.

[13] The song of the green-backed trogon consists of about 20 cow notes that start slow, but accelerate towards the end.

The nest is usually if not always built by the female which excavates an upward-sloping tunnel ending in a breeding chamber.