Its preferred habitat were coastal swamps and marshland covered with taro plants (Colocasia esculenta).

Von Kittlitz described its plumage as general black with bluish gloss.

X-ray measurements of the carpometacarpi lead to the assumption that it was flightless.

However its native name nay-tay-mai-not which means "the one who lands in the taro plot" might imply that the ability to fly was present.

German ornithologist Otto Finsch failed to find this bird on his expedition in 1880 and also the Whitney South Seas Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History in 1931 remained unsuccessful on a survey after that species.