[1][3] Grallaria antpittas are a "wonderful group of plump and round antbirds whose feathers are often fluffed up...they have stout bills [and] very short tails".

Adults have a mostly dark reddish yellow-brown crown, upperparts, wings, and tail with lighter edges on the flight feathers.

Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a blackish bill with a pinkish base to the mandible, and medium gray legs and feet.

It is thought to favor the floor and understory in the interior and edges of humid cloudforest heavy with moss and epiphytes and with much Chusquea bamboo.

It runs or hops on the forest floor and stops to find prey by flipping aside leaf litter and probing the soil.

[10] It is "known to occur within the Parque Nacional Yanachaga-Chemillén and the Área de Conservación Privada San Marcos".