It is reddish in breeding plumage and gray and white in winter. It breeds in the Arctic and spends winter on the open ocean.
Breeding females are bright reddish-cinnamon, while males are a duller orange-red. In winter, the back is smooth gray, the underside is white, and there is a dark patch behind the eye.
On the breeding grounds it eats marsh insects, including midges and cranefly larvae. At sea it takes copepods, amphipods, fish eggs and larvae, sometimes spinning on the surface to bring food within reach.
Both sexes choose a nest site on flat tundra. The ground scrape holds one to four eggs, and the male may add nearby grass, sedges or other material after the first egg is laid.
The male incubates for 17–26 days and raises the young. Newly hatched chicks have tawny or buff down with black back stripes and are ready to leave the nest.
Its bill is thicker than those of the other phalaropes. Breeding birds have a black crown and white cheeks. Juveniles have buffy tones and white edges to the wing feathers.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.