This woodpecker is marked by a spotted black breast and red nape. In the Amazon it uses flooded and riverside forests.
It is 18–21 cm long. The throat is white with black spots, while the green breast and back are also spotted in black. The nape is red and the tail has horizontal black-and-white bars. Females have a black cheek and a smaller red nape patch.
It eats small invertebrates, often breaking into ant nests to take adult ants and their eggs. It forages in pairs or groups.
At Boanamo in Ecuador in September 2012, both adults were seen entering and leaving a cavity 5.5 m above the ground in a dead snag at the river’s edge.
At the same Boanamo cavity, the female carried out a fecal sac and dropped it 15–20 m from the cavity.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.