This tanager occurs in the Andes of southern Colombia, Ecuador, and northernmost Peru. It inhabits the humid ecotone between páramo and forest.
The original description of the male gives dark golden green from crown to rump, a yellow rump, black wings and tail, and a black facial mask extending from the chin and upper throat around the neck and eye. The mask has a yellow upper border; most underparts are yellow.
A 1992 BirdLife account describes this secretive bird in the humid páramo–forest ecotone of the Andes.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.