It is found on Trinidad and in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

[2] The silvered antbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3][4] Gmelin based his description of the "wall-creeper of Surinam" that had been described and illustrated in 1764 by the English naturalist George Edwards in his Gleanings of Natural History.

[5] The silvered antbird is now the only species placed in the genus Sclateria that was introduced in 1899 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser.

Adult males of the nominate subspecies S. n. naevia have a dark gray crown, nape, and upperparts.

It favors areas with vine tangles, branches, and vegetation that overhands the water's edge.

It forages as individuals, pairs, and small family groups and mostly within about 1 m (3 ft) of the ground and seldom with mixed-species feeding flocks.

They hop along the ground and among low branches, and take prey mostly by picking from leaf litter and by reaching up to leaves and twigs.

It includes August in Suriname and northern Brazil and spans at least October to November in Peru.