It is restricted to humid forests in the west Andean foothills of western Colombia and north-western Ecuador.

It is highly sensitive to hunting and habitat destruction, with large sections of the main distribution in the Chocó having already disappeared.

[1] Structurally typical for a guan, the bird is about 65 cm (26 in) tall and the body is mostly dark brown.

Around the neck and head the brown is slightly darker and tending to greyish-brown, making the patching more visible.

[6][7] It was previously considered a subspecies of the Andean Guan, but discovery of overlapping populations in western Colombia and southwest Ecuador with no evidence for introgression has led to specific treatment more recently.