It is found in southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina, where it lives underground in a burrow it digs in savannah habitats.

The upper parts can be anything from mahogany brown to yellowish-brown, and the flanks and underparts are yellowish white.

[2] The collared tuco-tuco is native to southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina, where it is found in the provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes.

It is a herbivore and usually eats the whole plant on which it is feeding; it is diurnal and rather secretive, emerging only briefly from the entrance to its burrow to forage.

In Brazil it is threatened by increasing cultivation of its habitat, the planting of pine and Eucalyptus plantations, and the strip-mining of coal.