The Chatham Island Snipe is a small shorebird with finely patterned upperparts. It now lives on a small group of Chatham Islands and probes soil for food.
The upperparts are patterned brown and black with pale feather edges, while the belly is pale with little barring. Male legs are pale yellow; female legs are greenish.
It walks and forages by day or night, probing the soil with its bill. Foods include soil invertebrates such as amphipods and beetle and fly larvae.
It lays two large, dark-spotted pinkish-brown eggs in a concealed ground nest. Both parents incubate for 18–20 days. Chicks leave that day, with the male tending the first and female the second; the two families forage separately.
Food passes from bill-tip to bill-tip, both to chicks and from courting males to females. Prey includes amphipods and beetle or fly larvae and pupae. Birds venture into open coastal saltmarsh at night.
Males are slightly smaller than females and have brighter, more distinct back markings. Juveniles have olive legs and duller, less distinct plumage.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.