This diurnal species occurs in evergreen and semi-evergreen forests and edge and degraded areas derived from them, including gardens, shifting cultivation fallows and plantations; densities are higher in heavily degraded habitats than in little-encroached ones (Datta and Nandini 2014). It consumes flowers, fruits, bark, seed, leaves, insects and lichen and, occasionally, vertebrate meat. Bombax ceiba (flowers and fruits), Chukrasia tabularis (fruits), Dyabanga grandiflora (flowers), Pterospermum acerifolium (bark) and Kydia calycina (bark) have been identified as important resources (Datta and Nandini 2014).

Dreys are made of leafy twigs and branches (Datta and Nandini 2014) Relative abundance ranged from 0.11 to 1.58 per km, and density was higher in disturbed forests (plantations: 10.14 per km², logged forests: 23.4 per km²) than intact forests (logged forests: 1.85 per km², unlogged primary forests: 2.72 per km²). They were also recorded at heights below 10 m in most.

This widely distributed species is present in northeastern South Asia, southern China and western Southeast Asia: its entire distribution lies west of the Mekong, and almost all west of the Irrawaddy. In South Asia, this species is widely distributed in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal at elevations of 500 to 1,560 m a.s.l.; it occurs mostly east of the Brahmaputra but also extends long the southern Himalayan foothills to central Nepal (Moore and Tate 1965, Choudhury 2013, Thapa et al. in press). In China, it has apparently been recorded only from south-eastern Xizang (southern part Medog) but given the known distribution south of China it is likely also to occur in Yunnan province west of the River Mekong (Wang 2003). In Southeast Asia, it is confined to western and central Myanmar, largely west of the Sittang-Irrawaddy system but east of this in a small area around Mandalay (Moore and Tate 1965). Many sources (e.g. Smith and Xie 2008) portray the species as inhabiting China east of the Mekong and indeed soma (e.g. Thorington and Hoffman 2005) include Viet Nam. These errors result from past treatment of C. inornatus as a race of C. pygerythrus.

It is listed in the Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It occurs in many protected areas (Molur et al. 2005, Thapa et al. in press).