Adults have a heavy decurved bill with a black to dusky maxilla and a grayish mandible tipped with blue-gray.

Their hindneck is glossy blue-black and their upper back black with white edges giving a scaly appearance.

Their lower back and rump are rich maroon-chestnut and their uppertail coverts metallic green.

[6] The banded ground cuckoo is found in the Chocó Ecoregion on the Pacific slope of southern Colombia and far northern Ecuador.

[6] The banded ground cuckoo is almost exclusively terrestrial, though it may fly into a tree to escape a predator or to roost.

[6] The banded ground cuckoo forages mostly by sprinting along the forest floor with abrupt stops to scan for and capture prey.

[6] The banded ground cuckoo's breeding season is not fully known but appears to include at least March to June.

They were made mostly of fern leaves with no supporting structure, placed in forks of fairly large branches near the trunks of medium-sized trees, and were 3.9 and 5.4 m (10 and 20 ft) above the ground.

The banded ground cuckoo's principal vocalization "resembles a deep moo of a cow" that rises and falls and repeats about every five seconds.