The highlands rise east of Lake Malawi in the western portion of Mozambique's Niassa Province.

[1] In the 20th century the mountains had been little surveyed by biologists, due in part to the long Mozambican Civil War from the mid-1970s to the 1990s.

[2] Large mammals include the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus), sable antelope (Hippotragus niger), bushpig (Potamochoerus larvatus), leopard (Panthera pardus), side-striped jackal (Canis adustus), spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), and yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus).

It was identified as a separate species in 2016, and had previously been classed as a subspecies of the long-billed tailorbird (Artisornis moreaui), which is found over 900 km north in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania.

Other bird species found in the highlands include the montane nightjar (Caprimulgus poliocephalus), eastern green tinkerbird (Pogoniulus simplex), dark batis (Batis crypta), yellow-streaked greenbul (Phyllastrephus flavostriatus), Eurasian blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), dapple-throat (Arcanator orostruthus), green twinspot (Mandingoa nitidula), Southern citril (Crithagra hyposticta), and Vincent's bunting (Emberiza vincenti).