[3] This courser is a restricted-range endemic found locally in India in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh.

It has a yellow base to the black bill, a blackish crown, broad buff supercilium, and an orange-chestnut throat patch.

The egg was collected by Ernest Gilbert Meaton, a vet working at Kolar Gold Fields, in the year 1917.

An egg, probably collected within 100 km of Kolar in 1917, was positively identified as belonging to this species using DNA sequence comparison.

It was first recorded in the mid 19th century; it was then considered to be extinct for more than 80 years, until it was rediscovered in 1986 at Cuddapah District, Andhra Pradesh.

In Maharashtra it was reported at "24 km east of Sironcha, near the Godavari river, three birds, undated (Blanford 1867, 1869), and sometime in the 20-year period before 1935 (D'Abreu, 1935)".

[12] The species was known from specimens collected at a few locations in eastern peninsular India and the currently known population is extremely restricted in range.

Studies in this region using sand strips to detect footprints suggest that their preferred habitat has tall bushes at a density of 300 to 700 per hectare.

The specimen was presented to the Asiatic Society of Bengal where the curator, Edward Blyth described it, naming it as Macrotarsius rhinoptilus.

It was rediscovered by Bharat Bhushan, an ornithologist at the Bombay Natural History Society who made use of local trappers to capture a specimen.

[21] In December 2005, the only known location for the species was threatened by the Telugu Ganga project, a scheme to supply water to the city of Chennai.

[22] The area has however continued to be threatened by illegal construction work and activity related to a project proposed to link the rivers of India.