It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland.

The mourning sierra finch was formally described and illustrated in 1883 by the German naturalist Heinrich von Kittlitz under the binomial name Fringilla fruticeti.

[3] A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Phrygilus was polyphyletic,[4] and in the subsequent rearrangement, the mourning sierra finch was moved to the resurrected genus Rhopospina that had been introduced in 1851 by Jean Cabanis.

The specific epithet is from the Latin fruticetum meaning "thicket".