This woodpecker occurs in north-central Brazil's Cerrado. In a study near Pium, it used forested savanna with stands of bamboo, drilling stems to find ants.
The underside is yellowish buff, with black on the throat and upper breast. Its greyish upperparts are strongly barred in black; the neck has a yellowish ring. Males have a red malar stripe.
A study near Pium, Tocantins, found the woodpecker in forested Cerrado with tall stands of Guadua paniculata. It most often drilled dry bamboo stems a few metres above ground and ate ants living inside the internodes.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.