Also known as the white-necked picathartes, this passerine is mainly found in rocky forested areas at higher altitudes in West Africa from Guinea to Ghana.

The head is nearly featherless, with the exposed skin being bright yellow except for two large, circular black patches located just behind the eyes.

Rockfowl move through the forest primarily through a series of hops and bounds or short flights in low vegetation.

These nests are constructed out of mud formed into a deep cup and are built on rock surfaces, typically in caves.

Though the birds breed in colonies, infanticide is fairly common in this species, with rockfowl attempting to kill the young of other pairs.

[9] Recent DNA analysis has shown that Picathartidae and its closest relatives, southern Africa's rockjumpers and southeast Asia's rail-babbler, form a clade.

[14] On the adult, the head, excluding the chin and throat, is completely bare of feathers except for a thin layer of fuzz on the forehead.

[14] The eyelid and eyering are a thin line of black surrounding the bird's large, dark brown eyes.

[12][16] The bird's chin and throat are covered in a thin layer of white feathers, and the neck is long and slender.

After hatching, the head's skin is all yellow without the black patches of the adult; these are gained about a week before leaving the nest.

[13] The white-necked rockfowl often lives near flowing streams and rivers so that it has access to wet mud for nest construction.

It moves quickly through its forested habitat primarily through a series of hops and bounds, followed by a pause before resuming its movements.

It is believed that this behavior shows the intent of the rockfowl to roost in a group, though recent evidence suggests that the display could be involved in breeding.

[21] The white-necked rockfowl forages across slopes on mossy, creeper-covered boulders and in trees covered in lianas and hanging mosses.

[11] This rockfowl primarily eats insects, including larval cockroaches, tettigoniid grasshoppers, earwigs, ants from the genera Pachycondyla and Dorylus, click beetles from the genus Psephus, and termites.

[13] Other than insects, it has been observed eating millipedes, centipedes, snails, earthworms, and occasionally small frogs and lizards.

[13] When feeding its nestlings, the rockfowl primarily collects earthworms, small frogs, and lizards, with the vertebrates forming most of the biomass fed to the young.

[18] While its courtship behavior is unknown, the species is monogamous and therefore does not breed with rockfowl other than its mate despite earlier suggestions that it bred cooperatively.

[18] Unusually for a rainforest-dwelling bird, the white-necked rockfowl builds a nest out of mud with varying amounts of plant fibers mixed in.

[11] Mud is collected from nearby rivers and streams and is shaped into a strong, thick-walled, and deep cup attached to the cave wall or roof, a cliff, or a large boulder approximately 2 to 4 m (6.6 to 13.1 ft) above the ground.

[18] The young leave the nest by standing on the edge, emitting a piercing whistle, and then gliding down to the ground on spread wings where they are met by an adult bearing insects.

[18] In the lore of Sierra Leone's indigenous people, the often bizarre rock formations near which the white-necked rockfowl lives were believed to house ancestral spirits.

[28] This species also helped launch Sir David Attenborough's career in 1954, when he was the producer on the new television program Zoo Quest.

The show's presenter Jack Lester was required to travel to Africa to record attempts to capture animals for display in zoos, with the focus of the series being on the white-necked rockfowl.

[6][29] This species is considered Vulnerable by the IUCN due to its highly fragmented distribution, dwindling population, and habitat destruction.

[26] The stronghold of the species is in Sierra Leone and southern Guinea, where the bird is still locally common if difficult to locate.

[30] In return for lost logging rights, Sierra Leone has compensated locals with road and school renovations, additional training for police officers, and construction of churches and a mosque.

[20] In Guinea, the bird's forests are being logged to provide land for rice farming to help support farmers immigrating from the country's drier north.

[33] This plan, coupled with the bird's appearance and unusual habits, have led it to become a flagship species for habitat conservation across Africa and particularly in its upper Guinean forests.

[20] In the 1950s and 1960s, collecting this species for display in zoos was a major threat, and in Liberia in particular this practice destroyed several of the bird's colonies.