[1] The Guianan trogon was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin based his account on a description and illustration by the German botanist Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter that had been published 1765.

BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) treats it as the nominate subspecies of violaceous trogon.

The violet-blue of their head extends to the middle of their breast, where a narrow white band separates it from the bright yellow of the rest of their underparts.

Their upperparts are bright metallic green and their wings so finely marked with black and white that they appear dark gray-brown.

[12] The Guianan trogon's diet is fruit and arthropods that it collects while hovering after short sallies from a perch.

[12] The Guianan trogon's breeding season is not fully defined but appears to be within the November to June period.

It excavates a cavity in arboreal nests of paper wasps, ants, or termites and also in rotten wood or a fern root mass.