The species name commemorates Brother Nicéforo María, a Colombian missionary and herpetologist who provided Meyer de Schauensee with many specimens.

[4] The type-locality site is San Gil on the río Fonce south of Bucaramanga, in Santander, where ten specimens were collected between 1944 and 1948.

[10] In 2005 Oswaldo Cortes and colleagues discovered a disjunct population in the area of Soatá, approximately 100km south of San Gill, and in 2004-06 Thomas M Donegan and colleagues discovered a population in the Serranía de los Yariguíes, about 50km to the west of San Gill.

Its presence was found to be significantly correlated with that of Tricanthera gigantea, Acacia farnesiana, Sapindus saponaria and Pithecellobium dulce.

A recent survey found populations of Niceforo's wren in riparian forest fragments with tangled vegetation composed by shrubs and thorn scrubs, and also along shaded edges of coffee and cacao plantations.

They appear to forage for food mainly in leaf litter on the ground and have also been observed gleaning for arthropods under dry leaves and pecking on branches and tree holes.

Nesting materials included vegetable fibers of Tillandsia usneoides, fungal rhizomorphs (Marasmius spp.

Run by the Colombian NGO Fundación ProAves, the reserve comprises 1,400 ha of dry forest habitat, protecting a population of 21 individuals discovered in Santander Department in 2008.

[2] In the municipality of Soatá in Boyacá, the organization OCOTEA, the ornithology group of the Francisco José de Caldas District University, and the Fundación Ecodiversidad have worked towards the conservation of and research on Niceforo’s wren.

In this town there is strong support for conservation of biodiversity, including the founding of the first community reserve in the Chicamocha Canyon.