This large bird is bright yellow from head to belly and black on the back and wings. It walks across pastures and savanna in northern South America to forage.
The head, neck, shoulders, and underside are bright yellow; the back, rump, tail, and wings are black, with a yellow wing patch. The sexes are similar in appearance.
It walks through pastures and open fields to find insects, caterpillars, worms, and small frogs, and also eats fruit. Pairs and small open flocks were recorded.
In Carabobo, Venezuela, in 1966, a pair built a shallow bowl nest among palm-frond bases about 7 m above the ground. Long dry stems and compound-leaf stalks were the main materials, carried chiefly by the female.
One nest in Carabobo held three pale-blue eggs marked with black and lilac spots, incubated by the female.
In Carabobo, both parents carried small frogs, caterpillars, earthworms, spiders and a cricket in their bills to the chicks and removed the chicks’ droppings from the nest.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.