The head is gray with a black-framed yellow crown and white around the eyes.

Fan-tailed warblers live in and at the edge of evergreen and semideciduous forest, especially near ravines.

Fan-tailed warblers are known to engage in commensal feeding, wherein prey that has been roused or disturbed by the foraging or hunting of another animal is opportunistically captured.

They have been observed following and foraging for prey near army ants, other passerines, and nine-banded armadillos.

[2] The fan-tailed warbler is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus Euthlypis due to its unique morphology, but its nest, eggs, voice, and juvenile plumage are consistent with Basileuterus.