[8] In 1824, German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix created the genus Milvago for this species and the closely-related chimango caracara.

[4][12][3] A larger, stouter paleosubspecies, M. c. readei, occurred in Florida, and possibly elsewhere, some tens of thousands of years ago, during the Late Pleistocene.

Adults of the nominate subspecies have buff to creamy yellowish white heads, necks, and underparts with a thin dark streak through the eyes.

Their back and wings are blackish brown with a whitish patch at the base of the primaries that shows in flight.

Their iris is reddish brown surrounded by bare bright yellow skin and their legs and feet are pea green.

[15][16] Subspecies M. c. cordata is found in southwestern Nicaragua, western Costa Rica, and most of Panama, and in mainland South America from Colombia east through Venezuela and the Guianas, south through Ecuador and Peru east of the Andes, and across Brazil north of the Amazon River.

Off the north coast of the South American mainland, it occurs on Aruba, Trinidad, and Tobago, and has visited Bonaire and Curaçao as a vagrant.

Its range overlaps with that of the chimango caracara in southern Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Its diet includes carrion, insects (adult and larval), crabs, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, bird eggs and nestlings, horse dung, fruits such as those of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), coconut, and maize, and seeds.

[20] Mixed-species feeding flocks apparently do not regard it as a threat, not making alarm calls during encounters.