[4] The male has an orange/buff face and throat, a grey breastband extending around the neck and over the head and rufous underparts with pale yellow/olive edging to primaries.

Females and juveniles of both species are very similar, making them harder to distinguish although the red-lored whistler has a slightly more buff colouring.

The red-lored whistler is a bird of the low mallee, spinifex, cypress pine and broombush woodland in the desert of central New South Wales, north-western Victoria and adjacent south-eastern South Australia, preferring low mallee woodlands or shrublands with open canopy, above a moderately dense but patchy scrub layer.

[7] The species has long been regarded as sedentary, although the type specimen was collected in the Adelaide area suggesting some movement does occur.

In South Australia, it is generally restricted to the Ninety Mile Desert country and mostly limited to the Riverland Biosphere Reserve.

The population on the Eyre Peninsula is thought to be extinct, in central New South Wales the red-lored whistler is restricted to the mallee within Round Hill Nature Reserve and nearby Nombinnie Nature Reserve where it is regularly observed, although it was previously recorded at Scotia in south-western New South Wales.

[3] The red-lored whistler builds a substantial, cup-shaped nest made mostly of coarse bark and mallee leaves, neatly woven around the rim in low shrubs and lays 2-3 eggs.

Threats to the red-lored whistler include: loss of habitat through clearing, degradation, fragmentation and grazing by feral animals such as goats; fire and inappropriate fire regimes; population fragmentation from clearing and degradation of habitat; predation by foxes and cats; catastrophe, such as drought and wildfire; and climate change.