This spiny rat is recorded from a limited area of southern Espírito Santo and east-central Minas Gerais, Brazil. Its natural history is described as very limited.
The back ranges from cinnamon to blackish brown and pales toward the sides; the belly is white. The tail is about as long as the head and body, dark above and white below, with a hairy tip. Its mid-back spines are described as especially rigid and large within the genus.
Little is known about its life in the wild. Labels for the type series report collection in undisturbed forest, and the type locality is in moist dense submontane forest. Other records come from lowland moist forest, coastal restinga, and inland semideciduous forest.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.