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

[9] Gmelin based his description on the "Statenland eagle" that had been described in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds.

The son Georg made a water-colour drawing of the striated caracara during their visit to Staten Island (Isla de los Estados, east of Tierra del Fuego).

The bare skin on their face is salmon pink to yellowish orange, their iris brown, and their legs and feet bright orange-yellow.

[4][16] The most common calls are "a cat-like wailing waa-aow, a high-pitched, repeated scream, a loud cawing kaa in face of human intruders, and short sharp clicks around the nest.

It primarily inhabits rocky coasts with adjacent tussock grass but also ranges inland to mountain foothills up to about 500 m (1,600 ft) above sea level.

[4][16] The striated caracara is an opportunist species, feeding on everything from carrion, seabirds, marine mammals, invertebrates, stolen eggs, livestock, and food scraps around human settlements.

[21] Striated caracaras are also parasitic, displacing and robbing scavengers and small groups will attack healthy birds as large as kelp geese (Chloephaga hybrida).

[4][16] A population of striated caracaras on New Island was found to largely subsist on live slender-billed prions (both nestlings and older birds), which were hunted in the open or taken from nest burrows.