The birds have a greyish brown back and tail, with a rufous forecrown and a buffy white belly, throat, and undertail coverts.

They have a conspicuous rufous eye-ring, accompanied with a black bill and pale yellow eyes.

Food is typically gleaned from twigs and foliage, or less commonly from bark or from the ground.

The species epithet archboldi is in honour of the American zoologist Richard Archbold, who participated in the Mission Zoologique Franco-Aniglo-Américaine à Madagascar, which was when this species was discovered.

[2] It is a small, short-winged, and long-legged bird with a short and slender beak.

The central chin and throat are buffy white, along with the belly and undertail coverts.

The songs are distinctive variable warbles composed of 4-5 syllables, either "tee-too tekhew" or "chichichich wit-tee tew".

[2] The species is arboreal and moves through shrubs and low trees by hopping.

The stomach content of observed birds has been found to consist of spiders, beetles, true bugs, termites, caterpillars, and grasshoppers.

They glean their prey from twigs and foliage, also sometimes taking it from bark or from the ground.

[2] It mainly inhabits spiny forests composed of Didiereaceae, Euphorbia, and baobabs, and the neighbouring scrubby vegetation.

It is also known to inhabit degraded deciduous broadleaved forest in the northernmost parts of its range, and is also known to locally inhabit littoral forests in parts of its range in southeastern Madagascar.

The forests it inhabits in coastal southern Madagascar have experienced a very high rate of logging.