The short-tailed brush-furred rat occurs in the south-central Ethiopian highlands. It is diurnal, with records across an elevational sequence from forest to highland heath and grassland.
Its tail is furred, with dark hairs above and nearly white hairs below. The foreclaws are described as markedly long.
It is diurnal. The study reported it most often in highland Erica–Hypericum heath and less often in forest at lower elevations.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.