A small heron with fine black waves across its body.
Its gray-brown body has fine black vermiculation; young birds are warmer in tone.
Along riverside forest and oxbow lakes, it perches on branches, logs, or roots above water and lunges at fish while holding its perch.
It nests solitarily in low trees or bushes beside water, using shallow twig platforms often edged with thorny branches. Both adults attend the young.
Adults have a black crest forming a mane and a thick-headed appearance. The eyes are yellow; the bill is black or has a black-grey upper part and horn-yellow lower part.
Juveniles have rufous foreheads, cheeks, and necks, paler backs with rufous zigzag barring, sparse indistinct dark underpart stripes, and yellow-green bills and legs.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.