This snipe has a slender olive bill and patterned brown plumage. In Chile it is recorded from Atacama to Cape Horn, using wet grassland and waterside vegetation.
Its long, slender bill is olive with a darker tip. Dark stripes mark the head; the yellow-brown upperparts are densely streaked, while the underside is white with brown streaks. A broad reddish band appears near the tail tip.
It hides in wet grassland and vegetation along ponds and marshes. Usually alone or in pairs, it watches from cover, freezes when danger approaches, and may flee in a zigzag flight before landing nearby.
In Chile it makes a light nest of grass stems or rushes on a slightly drier rise in marshland. It usually lays two strongly pointed eggs, olive-green with large blotches concentrated around the broad end.
The legs are yellowish olive. The middle of the belly is whitish and unbarred. Dark brown face bands run from the lores toward the ear-coverts and from the bill base along the cheek.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.