It has a striking head pattern, with a long white supercilium above a broad black band through the eye.

[2] Indian scimitar-babblers have long down-curved yellow bills, used to work through the leaf litter and bark in search of their food which is mainly insects and berries.

[2] The Old World babblers are a large family of passerine birds characterised by soft fluffy plumage.

This species is very close to the Sri Lanka scimitar babbler which has in the past been treated as a subspecies.

In the past, this species has been considered as a subspecies of the white-browed scimitar babbler (Pomatorhinus schisticeps) which is found along the Himalayan foothills.

The race obscurus of the dry zone in the northwest (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat; possibly Orissa[6]) is lighter and greyer.

[7] The Sri Lankan form that was considered as a subspecies, melanurus, has been elevated to a full species by some works that note the geographic isolation and distinctive calls.

The nest is a large and loose globular mass of foliage concealed in a bush on the ground or low down.