This ovenbird is recorded from central-northern Uruguay to eastern Brazil. Adults have three central pairs of olive-brown tail feathers, and the reddish-chestnut chin grades into an olive-brown lower belly. A 2008 comparative study treated it as a distinct species from its close relative.
In adult specimens, reddish chestnut on the chin grades into olive-brown on the lower belly. The three central pairs of tail feathers are olive-brown, contrasting with reddish-chestnut outer pairs. The iris was reddish brown in live birds.
Records associate the bird with marshes and swamps overgrown with cattails, sedges, and grasses, where it is usually concealed. Two nests were found beside a Typha marsh at Viçosa, Minas Gerais, on 28 January and 28 February 1994. Both were closed, hanging structures woven tightly from grass leaves and stems.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.