A kingfisher of Sulawesi’s humid montane forests, it is striking for its blue-violet head and scaly-marked brown body.
It has a deep blue-violet head and brown feathers edged with pale markings that look like scales. Head and body patterns differ between the sexes.
It lives in the forest understory and catches invertebrates near the ground. It is often recorded in humid montane forest.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.