It is (or was) endemic to the island of Pohnpei (Federated States of Micronesia) in the Pacific Ocean.

The wings, rump, uppertail coverts and tail were paler and showed a stronger brown coloring at the head.

It foraged diurnally and its diet consisted of flowers, berries and seeds of evergreen bushes and trees as well as insects and maggots.

The Pohnpei starling was discovered by the Polish ethnographer John Stanislaw Kubary (1846–1896) and first described by German ornithologist Otto Finsch in 1876.

Sixty specimens were obtained during the Whitney South Seas Expedition led by William Coultas in 1930 and 1931.

One specimen was shot by Lawrence P. Richards in 1948 who sent the skin to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 1990 it was classified as extinct by the IUCN, but on 4 July 1995 ornithologist Donald W. Buden obtained a dead female that was shot by a native guide at a herpetological expedition during 1994.