[2] By mid-2022 the International Ornithological Committee, the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society had recognized the two new species, significantly reducing the range attributed to the chestnut antpitta.

They have a brown iris, a black bill, and slate, blue-gray, or silvery gray legs and feet.

[7][8] The chestnut antpitta is found intermittently on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes from the Cordillera de Colán in Amazonas Department south for an unknown distance but short of northern Huánuco Department.

[7] The chestnut antpitta's diet and foraging behavior have not been detailed; it is assumed to eat arthropods and perhaps small vertebrates as do other members of genus Grallaria .

The chestnut antpitta's song is "a rapid, monotone, slightly accelerating series of chiming notes: chew'chu'uuuuuuuu'uuu".