The Band-bellied Owl has a dark brown back and a pale belly crossed by heavy brown bars. It lives on the eastern Andean slope and is active at night.
The upperparts are dark brown, and the pale belly is heavily barred with brown. Whitish edges around the facial discs give the face a spectacled appearance.
It is nocturnal and lives in humid forest and forest edges. The stomach of one Ecuadorian specimen contained mainly grasshoppers and beetles, along with small spiders and seeds.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.