The yellow-spotted honeyeater is marked by a yellow ear patch. In northern Queensland it uses rainforest and mangroves and feeds on nectar, fruit, and insects.
About 17–19 cm long, it has dark olive to grey head and back, pale underparts, and a faintly streaked throat. A fine yellow line runs from the bill base to below the eye, and the yellow ear patch is roughly rounded-triangular.
Usually alone or in small parties, it feeds on nectar, berries, fruit, and insects. It lives in rainforest, vine thickets, mangroves, and nearby eucalypt woodland.
It makes a cup nest in dense shrubs or mangroves from bark shreds, palm fibres and lichens bound with spiderweb, supported by its rim and lined with plant down.
In northern Queensland it breeds from September to February, with the female incubating two or three eggs.
Around Cooktown it was noted to favour the fruits of Ficus opposita and Lantana camara.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.