It was a brownish winged bird with a yellow body ending with a notched tail, and a whitish pointed beak.

(At least one naturalist of the era, however, noted, "The beautiful blue of the legs is retained in the skin for only a few days and then fades almost to black.

")[2] The major difference between it and its relative was that its bill was white and the fact that the bird was six inches in comparison to the four-inch Hawaiʻi ʻamakihi.

It lived in a small tract of forest where it crept through the vines and trees for insects as part of its diet.

It was not discovered until the last quarter of the 19th century by Henry Palmer, who collected in the islands between 1890 and 1893, and it was apparently unknown to natives.