It was first identified from a specimen collected by William Louis Abbott, who discovered it on Assumption Island in 1892.

Abbott's booby breeds only in a few spots on the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the eastern Indian Ocean, although it formerly had a much wider range.

It forages around Christmas Island, often around nutrient-rich oceanic upwellings, although individuals can travel for thousands of kilometres.

Pairs mate for life and raise one chick every two or three years, nesting near the top of emergent trees in the rainforest canopy.

The basal characters present in this species suggest it may be an early branch of the sulid family, antedating the split between gannets and other boobies.

[4] However, 2011 study of multiple genes found it to be basal to all other gannets and boobies, and likely to have diverged from them around 22 million years ago.

[1] Fossil evidence indicates its former presence in the South Pacific, and eyewitness reports of it formerly breeding on the Mascarene Islands.

Due to the trade winds flowing south-east from April to November, trees that can be approached from the northwest are favoured.

A single female was recently observed on Rota, northeast of Guam in the Pacific, and some records from the Banda Sea indicate either an even larger range or unknown breeding colonies.

[11] The current decline is attributed to a low recruitment rate and the negative effects of wind turbulence on a breeding population.

If an individual falls to the forest floor, it will starve unless it can climb high enough to be able to catch the wind and take off.

No feeding patterns are known,[1] although they are thought to forage in an ocean upwelling off Java, 300 km (186 mi) northwest of Christmas Island.

[3] Introduced plants are foiling habitat rehabilitation in abandoned mining sites and pose a risk if they invade primary forest.

[1] Christmas Island National Park includes all known Abbott's booby nest sites.

[1] The Environment Australia Abbott's Booby Recovery Plan aims to regenerate forests and help prevent further decline in the species.

[12] An invasion of the yellow crazy ant poses continued risk for the booby population.

They do, however, disrupt the ecosystem by killing red crabs, and farm scale insects that damage the trees where the boobies nest.

The birds may be directly hunted[1] or caught as bycatch in longline fishing,[11] as they may come into contact with Indonesian and Taiwanese fisheries.

[1] Plans for a satellite launch pad to be built on the island have been discussed, but are not currently being put into action.

[1] The increase in sea temperatures reduces breeding success, as the best feeding is found in cold water caused by nutrient-rich upwellings.

[3] Abbott's booby is listed under CITES Appendix I, and is classified as endangered in the IUCN Redlist.