The marbled wood quail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3][4] The marbled wood quail is now placed with around 14 other species in the genus Odontophorus that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot.

The mantle and neck are greyish-brown, the back and wings are brown with black vermiculations and the rump and upper-tail coverts are indistinctly spotted with paler colour.

[8] The marbled wood quail is an elusive bird, moving about in the undergrowth and seldom seen, but its distinctive calls can often be heard, particularly at dawn and dusk.

Nests are sometimes found at the foot of a tree, with about four white eggs, sometimes spotted with brown, in a shallow scrape concealed under a roof of dead leaves; the breeding season varies with locality.