[3] The rufous-tailed stipplethroat was described and illustrated by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1890 and given the binomial name Hypocnemis erythrura.

All were eventually named "stipplethroats" to highlight a common feature and to set them apart from Myrmotherula antwrens.

[5][6][7] The rufous-tailed stipplethroat has two subspecies, the nominate E. e. erythrura (Sclater, PL, 1890) and E. e. septentrionalis (Zimmer, JT, 1932).

Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a mostly gray face and a whitish throat with some black streaks.

Their breast is gray and their belly and undertail coverts light olive-brown to buff-brown.

[8][9][10][11][12] The rufous-tailed stipplethroat's nominate subspecies is found from southeastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador into northeastern Peru to the Marañón and Amazon rivers and east into extreme northwestern Brazil.

It typically forages singly, in pairs, or in small family groups, and usually as part of a mixed-species feeding flock.

A different nest was a dome-shaped ball with a side entrance, made of dead leaves and placed in a dense shrub.