Brown Wood-Rail

The brown wood rail is 33 to 36 cm (13 to 14 in) long, one male was found to weigh 454 g (16.0 oz). The sexes are alike. Adults have a yellow-green bill, a red eye, and pink legs and feet. Their head is ashy gray with a yellow spot on the forehead and a pale throat. Their tail, flanks, and belly are black and the rest of their body is chestnut to warm brown. Immatures and juveniles have not been described. The brown wood rail's specific epithet commemorates the German naturalist Theodor Wolf.

The brown wood rail is patchily distributed in western Colombia and western Ecuador. A single 1977 report from Peru was retracted in 2011 and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society does not recognize it. It inhabits a variety of wet and dry landscapes including mangroves, freshwater marsh, swampy woodland, river bottoms, and mature and secondary forest. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 900 m (3,000 ft).