This flowerpiercer lives in the high Andes. Disjunct populations occur in northern Colombia and farther south in Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and their relationship has been studied.
It is about 14 cm long. The 2021 paper discusses earlier specimen comparisons in which the northern Colombian subspecies vuilleumieri was smaller than the southern population.
It uses humid forest edges, shrubland and Polylepis woodland in the Andes at 2,000–4,200 m. It takes nectar and is also described as omnivorous.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.