This trogon lives in highlands from Mexico into Central America. The checklist lists pine, pine-oak, and montane evergreen forests as its habitats.
The male has large white squares on the underside of the tail. The female has a broken white eye-ring on a brown head and a coarse black-and-white pattern beneath the tail.
Field accounts place it high in trees and describe it as shy; the checklist associates it with pine and pine-oak highlands.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.