This finch is endemic to Puerto Rico, where it lives in forests and thickets. It mainly eats fruit and seeds and moves through dense vegetation.
It has black plumage, a thick bill and reddish marks above the eyes, on the throat and below the base of the tail. The female is slightly smaller and duller than the male.
It eats fruit and seeds and sometimes buds, flowers and nectar. It forages in dense vegetation, especially the middle layer of humid forest and the canopy of dry and dwarf forests.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.