[2] The star-throated antwren was described and illustrated by the German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix in 1825 and given the binomial name Thamnophilus gularis.

When a morphological and genetic analysis published in 2012 found that the star-throated antwren was not closely related to other species in Myrmotherula it was moved to genus Rhopias which had originally been erected by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1860.

[2] Its closest relatives appear to be the banded antbird (Dichrozona cincta) and the two species of antwrens in genus Isleria.

Adult males have a grayish forehead and rufous-brown crown, upperparts, and tail with a hidden white patch between the scapulars.

Their throat is black with white spots, their breast and belly gray, and their flanks and undertail coverts pale rufous-brown.

It also jumps from a perch to take prey from leaf litter the ground and works through tangles of fallen branches.

[10] Its nest is an open cup made of fine rootlets, fungal fibers, and pieces of dried leaves.

It occurs in several nominally protected areas but "the deforestation, colonization, agricultural expansion and urbanization that inevitably follow an expanding human population in this already most densely populated region of Brazil will present continuing threats to the integrity of the reserves on which this and many other endemic species depend".