The Karoo prinia was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.

[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Montacilla maculosa in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

The Karoo prinia builds a thin-walled oval nest with a side entrance from green grass.

The Karoo prinia is usually seen in pairs or small groups, typically low in scrub, but sometimes perching on the top of a bush.