Its plumage is silver-grey on its head and most of underparts with dark bronzy-green upperparts and black undertail-coverts.

It feeds on fruit of a great variety of native and introduced trees.

It is now an important seed disperser on Makatea, accelerating the spread of native forest into areas which had been mined and deforested.

[1] The Polynesian imperial pigeon is featured in a folktale from Tupua'i, French Polynesia, in which it plays the role of a midwife for a sister who others refused to help in childbirth.

In some versions of the story, it avenges its sister by casting all of the people of the island into the ocean.