This antbird lives in gallery forest in Roraima, northern Brazil, and adjacent Guyana. Males and females differ in plumage.
The male is mostly black, with faint white streaks on the throat and breast, pale fringes on the wing-coverts, and white tail tips. The female is dark slate-grey, with a gray-streaked white throat and ochraceous underparts.
It uses dense shrubby, vine-filled understory in gallery forest along rivers; the study recorded solitary and paired birds.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.