It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the spotted tanager in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in the West Indies.

[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.

Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Tanagra punctata and cited Brisson's work.