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

[2][3] The straight-billed woodcreeper was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[5] Gmelin based his description on "Le pic-grimpereaux" from Cayenne that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon.

Its bill is distinctive, with a straight culmen on the maxilla and a mandible that curves upward.

Adults of the nominate subspecies D. p. picus have an indistinct pale supercilium and eyering, a dusky stripe behind the eye, and brown ear coverts with wide buffy white streaks.

Their chin and throat are buffy white with a dark brown to black scaly appearance that extends onto the upper breast.

[9] The straight-billed woodcreeper inhabits a wide variety of lowland habitats, most of which are open to semi-open rather than densely forested.

[9] The straight-billed woodcreeper's diet is mostly arthropods but includes other invertebrates like snails and small vertebrates like lizards as well.

It forages by hitching up and along trunks and branches, usually between the top of the understory and the subcanopy but also sometimes lower and higher.

[9][11][12] The straight-billed woodcreeper's breeding seasons vary widely across its very large range, generally beginning in April or earlier in the north and around September in the south.

It has an extremely large range and an estimated population of at least five million mature individuals.

"A widespread habitat generalist; preference for open country, second growth, edge and human-altered environments reveals comparatively low sensitivity to human disturbance.