This armadillo occurs in the western Amazon. A 2021 Colombian study describes large knee scales and movable armor bands as identification clues and obtained almost all records in forest along rivers.
In a Colombian camera-trap study, traits used to distinguish it from the similar D. novemcinctus included well-developed knee scales and 7–8 movable bands on the armor in that account.
In the Colombian Altillanura study, all but one record came from riparian forest, and activity was recorded mainly at night. The exception was a road-killed animal found in open savanna; the paper does not treat this as proof of regular savanna use.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.