The Ocellated Quail stands out for its backward-leaning crest and the male's black-and-white facial pattern. It stays under shrubs or grass and searches the ground for plant foods.
The adult male has a backward-leaning, bushy crest and black crescent-shaped marks on a white face. Pairs of white spots mark the brown wing feathers.
In Honduras’s Yeguare Valley, Ocellated Quail were recorded feeding in small coveys in hillside pine woods. At a slope with terrestrial orchids, disturbed soil and partly eaten underground plant parts marked their feeding area.
In October 1946, a researcher encountered five birds feeding on a hillside. Ground orchids grew there, and an area about nine by twelve metres had been extensively turned over, with partly eaten orchid storage organs scattered about.
One bird collected there had thick deposits of soil on its bill. The observer inferred that bills, as well as feet, probably helped with digging; this was an interpretation from the traces left by feeding.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
A regional quail-conservation report identifies basic natural-history research as a priority for this species. Establishing its distribution, numbers and breeding requirements provides a foundation for conservation planning.