[3] It was later treated by many ornithologists as a subspecies of the black-faced antthrush (Formicarius analis), though some retained it as a species due to significant differences in the two taxa's vocalizations.

[5][6][7][8][excessive citations] The Mayan antthrush has three subspecies, the nominate F. m. moniliger (Sclater, PL, 1857), F. m. pallidus (Lawrence, 1882), and F. m. intermedius (Ridgway, 1908).

Their face from their bill to their eye is black that extends down to include the chin and throat.

Their flight feathers are brown with dusky inner edges and a wide cinnamon band at the base.

They have a dark brown iris, a black bill, and gray to bluish legs and feet.

[9][10][11] The nominate subspecies of the Mayan antthrush is found on the Caribbean slope in the southeastern Mexican states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas.

F. m. intermedius is found on the Caribbean slope from Belize and eastern Guatemala to central Honduras.

The Mayan antthrush's song "begins with a single introductory whistle followed, after a short pause, by a series of 8–14 whistles at a flat pitch, or alternatively gradually increasing or decreasing in pitch piu...piupiupiupiupiupiupiupiupiu!".