This small tapaculo occupies scattered wet grasslands on river floodplains in southeastern Brazil. Its habitat is highly fragmented, and BirdLife International assessed it as Vulnerable in 2023.
It has black upperparts, gray underparts, brown barring on the flanks, and reddish-brown legs.
It uses tall, dense grass that is seasonally flooded, moves close to the ground, and feeds on insects.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.