This small warbler occurs in the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. It has olive upperparts, pale buff underparts, and dark markings around the eye.
It is about 13 cm long. Adults have olive upperparts and pale buff underparts, with dark stripes on the sides of the crown. A curved black line passes behind and below the eye, and a broader dark bar crosses the ear-coverts; the central crown stripe has orange at the feather bases.
It uses the understory and nearby edges of primary and secondary highland forest. The Costa Rican account describes noisy foraging parties of three to eight birds. That account gives no nesting information.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.