[3] In 1743 the English naturalist George Edwards included a picture and a description of the reddish hermit in his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

Edwards based his etching on a specimen owned by the Duke of Richmond that had been collected in Suriname.

[4] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the reddish hermit with the hummingbirds in the genus Trochilus.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Trochilus ruber, and cited Edwards' work.

Males have a black band on the chest and the tail feather have narrow white or reddish tips.

Nectar robbing by piercing the base of a flower has been regularly observed in southeastern Brazil.

[9] The IUCN has assessed the reddish hermit as being of Least Concern, though its population size is unknown and is believed to be decreasing.

[1] It has a very large range, is considered "locally common to abundant", and occurs in several protected areas.