This antbird is common in bamboo patches of southeastern Peru. It forages almost exclusively in stands of Guadua bamboo.
The male is nearly all black with white wing bars. The female has olive-brown upperparts and whitish wing bars, with grey sides of the head and underparts. Both sexes have a long, graduated tail tipped with large white spots.
It forages almost exclusively in stands of Guadua bamboo. In southeastern Peru it is fairly common in bamboo patches, mainly in Madre de Dios; records on the eastern Andean slope reach 1,350 m.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.