Bolivian Spinetail

The Bolivian spinetail is 14.5 to 15 cm (5.7 to 5.9 in) long. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a white supercilium and dirty white lores with black tips on an otherwise gray face. Their crown is rufous with buff and gray speckles on the forecrown. Their nape and back are light brownish olive, their rump tawny olive, and their uppertail coverts cinnamon brown. Their tail is rufous with a faint dusky wash on the innermost pair of feathers. Their wings are rufous with grayish brown inner webs on the primary coverts and fuscous tips to the flight feathers. Their chin and upper throat are dirty white and the rest of their underparts are light grayish olive with a faint buff tinge. Their iris is warm brown, their bill pink with a sooty tip to the mandible, and their legs and feet olive yellow or olivaceous. What is thought to be a juvenile had a crown the same color as the adult's back and a less distinct supercilium.

The Bolivian spinetail is found only in a few valleys in Bolivia's northern and central Andes. Documented and sight records have come from a few locations in the departments of La Paz and Cochabamba. It inhabits deciduous forest, sometimes with columnar cacti and low bushes, and sometimes epiphytic lichens and Tillandsia on the trees. In elevation it is known to range between 1,600 and 2,300 m (5,200 and 7,500 ft) and might occur as high as 3,300 m (10,800 ft).

The Bolivian spinetail feeds on arthropods but details are lacking. During the breeding season it apparently forages in pairs and joins mixed-species feeding flocks in other seasons. It typically forages in the forest's lower levels, between 1 and 4 m (3 and 13 ft) above the ground, gleaning prey from bark and foliage.