This small tapaculo lives in dense understory of mountain forest in southeastern Brazil. Its dark gray plumage is paler below, with a lighter center to the throat and breast.
Museum specimens of the dark-gray taxon are mouse-gray to dark gray above, sometimes with a bluish sheen, and paler below. The center of the throat and breast can be whitish; flank shading varies among individuals.
It uses dense mountain-forest understory and bamboo thickets and searches the ground for small invertebrates.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.