This coucal has a black cap and pale underparts. It searches for food among grasses and thickets, usually keeping to dense cover.
It has a black cap and buffy underparts. Its plain black upper tail helps distinguish it from similar coucals in areas where they overlap.
It skulks through thick grass, scrub, savanna thickets, and forest edges while searching for food. After rain it may perch in the open to dry.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.