Widespread and common throughout its range, Lawes's parotia is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The male is a velvet black bird with an erectile silvery white forehead crest, iridescent purple blue nape and golden green breast plumes[3] which are structurally colored.

The breast plumes have V-shaped barbules, creating thin-film microstructures that strongly reflect two different colors, bright blue-green and orange-yellow.

During courtship, the male bird systematically makes small movements to attract females, so the structures must have evolved through sexual selection.

Adorned with three ornamental spatule head wires from behind of each eye and elongated black flank feathers, that spread skirt-like in courtship display.