The grey-winged trumpeter (Psophia crepitans) is a member of a small family of birds, the Psophiidae.

It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

The grey-winged trumpeter was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under current the binomial name Psophia crepitans.

[3][4] Linnaeus specified the type locality as "America meridionali" but this is now restricted to Cayenne in French Guiana based on Barrère.

The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society, and the Clements taxonomy recognise three subspecies:[7][8][9] Some authors treat P. c. ochroptera as a subspecies of the pale-winged trumpeter (P. leucoptera) and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World treats it as a separate species, the ochre-winged trumpeter.

Their stout, slightly decurved, bill is yellowish green and their legs and feet greenish olive.

Subspecies P. c. napensis has bronzy or purple iridescence, lighter gray wings and rump, and a more ferruginous back.

P. c. napensis is found from southeastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador into northeastern Peru and east into extreme northwestern Brazil north of the Amazon.

Within that broad category it favors landscapes away from human habitations and with an open understory and many fruiting trees.

They apparently time their breeding so the eggs hatch at the beginning of the local rainy season when fruit, and especially insects, are abundant.

[12][13] Indigenous peoples tame trumpeters as sentinals because of their predator-spotting ability and loud alarm call; they are also thought to kill snakes.