This dark honeyeater lives in the New Guinea highlands. It eats insects, nectar, pollen, and fruit, foraging at different levels of the forest.
The upperparts are dark brownish black, with pale feather tips that can create a faint mottled or scaled effect. Pale blue bare skin surrounds the eye, with a red to orange-red bare patch behind it. The underside also has pale speckling or scaling.
It feeds on insects, nectar, pollen, and fruit. It forages at different forest levels, using shrubs and low trees in clearings and alpine scrub. It is usually seen alone, sometimes in pairs.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.