The Spotted Nothura lives in South American grasslands. It eats mostly plant matter and is also described as omnivorous.
It is about 24–27 cm long.
It uses open grassland and is omnivorous, eating both plant and animal matter.
From July 2015 to July 2016, cameras beside artificial water points at Estancia Montania in Boquerón, western Paraguay, recorded birds identified as N. chacoensis in exotic pasture but not in the site’s xerophytic forest. This was one ranch’s survey and does not show that the bird uses pasture only elsewhere.
Territorial songs recorded from four individuals in the Paraguayan Chaco in August 2016 and February 2017 were very rapid, nearly even trills. In the paper’s comparison, they closely matched the most frequent Spotted Nothura territorial song in length, note count, rate and emphasized frequency.
The Chaco birds treated as a subspecies of N. maculosa in a 2018 study have also been recognized as the species N. chacoensis. Paraguayan specimens had slightly paler upperparts, slightly paler and buffier underparts, and finer lower-neck and breast streaking than nearby N. m. paludivaga. Plumage overlapped, and no consistent size or shape difference was found.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.