It is native to the west slope of Ecuador and extreme southern Colombia, where it lives in the high-altitude humid mountain forests of the Andes.

The side of the neck and underparts are blue gray with a yellow patch on the flanks which is partially covered by the wings.

These forests receive an average of 14 feet of rainfall per year and the canopy ranges from 6 to 10 meters high.

Because of its altitudinal range, plate-billed mountain toucans share their ecological niche with the Andean cock-of-the-rock.

It disperses the seeds of plants such as the mountain understory shrub Faramea affinis[2] and the palm Prestoea acuminata.

)[4] While it is still a fairly common species, the Plate-billed mountain toucan is considered Near Threatened by the IUCN and is in decline because of habitat being lost to deforestation.

[1] The plate-billed mountain toucan is the flagship bird of the La Planada Nature Reserve in Colombia.