Male has bluish-green iridescence on the forehead, cheek, and shoulder, and a yellow throat and chest with an orange smudge.

Similar to Lina’s Sunbird, but male has a shorter, rounded green tail and olive rather than blue flight feathers, and the female lacks the gray head, streaked chest, and reddish belly.

Voice includes a high-pitched jumbled song and an upslurred, high-pitched “chuit!” The metallic-winged sunbird was formally described in 1876 by the English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe based on specimens collected on the island of Basilan by members of an expedition to the Philippines led by the American ornithologist Joseph Beal Steere.

Sharpe coined the binomial name Aethopyga pulcherrima,[2][3] where the specific epithet is from Latin pulcherrimus meaning "very beautiful".

It is assessed as a Least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as it is fairly common in its range and tolerant of disturbed habitat.