It is a communally nesting resident bird of arid scrub in the Middle East which lives together in relatively stable groups with strict orders of rank.

Starting in the 1970s, Amotz Zahavi observed the babbler at length, giving rise to his theory of signal and its correlative, the handicap principle.

[5][6] Yitzchak Ben-Mocha of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology has studied Arabian babblers in Israel's Shezaf Nature Reserve.

He has found evidence of intentional communication in the process used by adult babblers to encourage fledglings to move to a new shelter through calls and movement.

[9] Groups are labelled according to the relatedness of helpers to the reproductive pair: Babblers build open cup-shaped nests in the dense part of the tree or bush.

Their breeding period starts generally from February and varies up to July and is highly dependent on the seasonal rainfall of the region which in turn regulates the food availability.

[11] The diet of the babblers includes a variety of invertebrates (mostly arthropods), small vertebrates (lizards, geckos, snakes) and plant material, like nectar, flowers, berries, leaves and seeds.