The male, as with other jacanas and some other wader families like the phalaropes, takes responsibility for incubation, with two eggs held between each wing and the breast.

Also visible are yellow bony spurs on the leading edge of the wings, which it can use to defend itself and its young.

The yellow bill extends up as a red coot-like head shield and a reddish wattle, and the legs and very long toes are dull blue-grey.

Several of the other subspecies are similar, but J. j. hypomelaena of western Panama and northern Colombia has all the chestnut plumage replaced by black, and J. j. scapularis of western Ecuador has some black feathers on its chestnut shoulders, and white outer primary feathers.

The wattled jacana's food is insects (such as beetles, grasshoppers and crickets),[7] other invertebrates (e.g. ticks and mollusks), small fish, roots[7] and seeds picked from the floating vegetation or the water's surface.