This mole-rat was studied at Karonga and the Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi. The sampled animals had grey-buff coats, and researchers found complex underground burrows. The paper used the name Cryptomys whytei.
Sampled animals were grey-buff, with no white head spot or only a small, indistinct one. One female was almost entirely whitish.
One excavated Karonga burrow network extended beneath cassava and sugarcane fields, uncultivated land, and bamboo thicket. Cassava remains were found in two chambers.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.