This bird is a resident breeder in Africa south of the Sahara Desert.

[citation needed] This skulking passerine is typically found low in dense cover.

The sexes are similar, but juveniles are paler yellow on the breast.

The grey-backed camaroptera was described by the German physician and zoologist Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar in 1830 under the binomial name Sylvia brevicaudata.

[1][2] The specific epithet brevicaudata is from Latin brevis for "short" and caudatus for "-tailed".