The Marbled Wood-Quail has finely patterned plumage in brown, black, and gray. It walks along the forest floor in family groups while foraging.
Its plumage mixes brown, black, and gray, with fine barring below. The subspecies north of the Amazon is more uniform in color than birds to the south.
Marbled Wood-quails walk on the forest floor and scratch aside fallen leaves with their feet to find food. In Costa Rica, small coveys moved through shaded woodland, sometimes in single file. Fallen leaves also supplied nest material.
A Costa Rican account published in 1947 described a nest in a hollow beside the roots and trunk of a fallen tree. Small sticks supported a roof of dead leaves, with a round entrance at one side. The eggs lay below the ground in front of the doorway, and the roof blended into the surrounding leaf litter. Even when guided to it, the observer had difficulty distinguishing the nest at close range.
On another morning, an incubating female leaving her nest picked up dead leaves in front of her and tossed them backwards over her head onto the roof. After she returned and settled on her eggs, these leaves almost entirely screened the front of her body. Leaves gathered from the ground became part of the cover surrounding the sitting bird.
IUCN Red List (BirdLife listing) · Least Concern · Global
BirdLife lists Least Concern globally. Historical Costa Rican observations placed birds mainly in the shaded undergrowth of tall rainforest, with visits to adjoining second growth. Nests used ground hollows, fallen trees, leaves and small sticks. Retaining undergrowth, leaf litter and fallen wood preserves features used in the local habitat.