[2] The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society accepted it as a new species in July 2020, the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) followed suit in January 2021, and the Clements taxonomy in August 2021.

Its specific epithet honors Dr. Irma Franke, "a major contributor to recent Peruvian ornithology, who participated in the expedition that first discovered the Jalca Tapaculo in 1985".

[2][6] Like all members of genus Scytalopus, the jalca tapaculo is a small, plump, dull-colored bird.

The male's crown and much of the face are dark gray, with a silvery white supercilium of variable size.

It mostly inhabits areas of dense bunchgrass and scattered shrubs ("jalca"), where it sticks to ravines and steep rocky slopes that are not grazed by sheep and cattle.

[6] The jalca tapaculo's song is "a long series of regularly repeated reverberating churrs in bouts lasting several minutes.

It appears to be common at the type locality of Millpo in Huánuco but is scarcer elsewhere in the northern part of its range due to heavy grazing pressure.