The Madagascar cuckoo-relative has gray-green plumage, a crest, and blue bare skin around the eyes. It moves between the ground and trees.
A distribution model comparing nine Coua species in Madagascar associated Crested Coua occurrences with forest–cropland mosaics and found a negative association with deciduous shrubland. It estimated suitable area across 31.6% of the island, one of the largest predictions in the group. The Red-breasted Coua estimate was 11.7%, so the Crested Coua estimate was about 2.7 times as large. The model used 46 training presences and 15 test records.
It eats insects, fruits, berries, seeds, small reptiles, and snails. It uses its wings to move from the ground into trees and balances with its long tail while walking along branches.
It has gray-green plumage and a crest, blue bare skin around the eyes, a rufous breast, a white belly, and a long purplish-blue tail tipped in white.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.