They forage in small groups on the forest floor, turning around leaf litter to find their prey and usually staying low in the undergrowth where they can be hard to spot.

Puff-throated babblers have strong legs, and spend a lot of time on the forest floor.

The western Himalayas population is punctatum (includes jonesi) and in the east is mandellii, which has streaking on the back and nape as well as having call differences.

In the east of India, south of the Brahmaputra River occurs chamelum while ripley is found in a small region in eastern Assam (Margherita).

Further east in Manipur is vocale and pectorale in Arunachal Pradesh and northern Burma with stageri further south, followed by hilarum, victoriae and minus.

Further east are found shanense, subochraceum, insularum, indistinctum, chtonium, elbeli, acrum, oreum, dusiti, vividum, ubonense, euroum, deignani, dilloni and smithi.

Its habitat is scrub and bamboo thickets and it forages by turning over leaves to find insects.