The genus was only erected in mid-2023 by four South American ichthyologists and their Swedish colleague Sven O. Kullander, and the name is a near-tautonym of the chosen type species.

It occurs in the Amazon Basin, in the drainage basin of the Orinoco, in the entire river basin of the Río de la Plata, the Río Paraná and the Río Uruguay, in the coastal rivers of the Guyanas, on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, in the coastal rivers of northeastern Brazil and in the lagoons Lagoa dos Patos and Lagoa Mirim in the south of Brazil.

Males show an irregular pattern of small, light spots on the sides of their bodies; in females, the belly is reddish or purple and rounded.

In contrast to Hemeraia and Teleocichla, in Saxatilia the infraorbitals 4 and 5 (bones below the eye socket) are not fused together.

Saxatilia differs from Crenicichla (subgenus Batrachops) by the absence of a reticulate colour pattern on the sides of the body.