This antbird occurs in lowlands of western Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. It uses densely vegetated lowland forest edges, light gaps, and second growth.
Males are entirely black. Females have white spots on the wing coverts and white spotting from the throat to the upper belly.
It forages mainly on the ground and hops to low perches, mostly under 1 m. The paper notes that this species' foraging behavior is poorly known.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.