This small ovenbird lives in evergreen mountain forests from Central America into the Andes. Tawny spots on its breast and around the eye are useful identification marks.
It is about 13–15 cm long and mostly dark brown, with tawny-ochraceous spots on the breast and around the eye. Its dark-brown to rufous tail feathers have barbed tips.
It searches for insects in mossy, epiphyte-rich mountain forest, eating ants, cockroaches, and their eggs. Its loose cup nest may be placed over water. In a seven-year study of 155 nests in one Venezuelan Andean cloud forest, both adults incubated and the mean incubation period was about 27.2 days.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.