This small shrike-babbler has a white eye-ring and a black border behind its yellow ear-coverts. It searches for insects in the canopy.
It is about 11.5–12 cm long. A curved black border runs behind the yellow ear-coverts, and the back is olive. Males have a chestnut wash from the throat to upper breast and two broad white wing-bars; females are duller, with rufous-buff bars.
It eats large grasshoppers and other insects. It is usually seen alone, in pairs, or in small groups, and forages slowly through the canopy.
It builds a small cradle-shaped nest of fine roots, twigs, ferns, tendril fragments, moss and lichens, suspended hammock-like in a tree.
Juveniles resemble females but have less distinct markings.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.