In 1928 Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews recognized that the plumage of the race from Lord Howe Island was much browner and more greyish than the plumage of the Norfolk Island race and split the species into two forms, the Norfolk starling (Aplonis fusca fusca), and the Lord Howe starling (Aplonis fusca hulliana).

The females were coloured similarly but the greenish gloss were slightly duller and a grey throat contrasted with pale brownish flanks.

Competition from introduced European starlings, song thrushes and common blackbirds, overhunting and habitat loss through agricultural clearing might have played important roles.

Reports in older literature that it was driven to extinction by rats like its relative from Lord Howe Island are incorrect because rats did not become a pest on Norfolk Island until 1940, while the last living record of a Norfolk starling is from 1923.

It was endemic to Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea, part of New South Wales, Australia.

The head, the neck, the mantle and the throat were glossy metallic green.

[2] The fate of the Lord Howe starling was sealed in June 1918 when the SS Makambo grounded at Ned's Beach, thus allowing black rats to leave the vessel and overrun the island.