The Sooty Antbird lives in Amazonian forest understory and sometimes forages near columns of army ants.
The male is mostly black with fine white lines at the bend of the wing. The female has a brown back, a rufous crown, and gray sides of the head and underparts.
It forages near army-ant columns. A southeastern Peru study found seven dome-shaped nests on slopes and ravines in lowland humid forest.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.