Adults are dark starlings with a metallic green sheen and long, pointed feathers on the crown and throat. They live on the Tanimbar Islands, where fruit is an important food.
Adults have a charcoal-black head and body with a metallic green gloss. The crown and throat feathers are lance-shaped; the sexes look similar.
During the 2015 dry season, researchers studying wild Goffin’s cockatoos found three nests with fledging young in Lorulun forest on Yamdena Island, in the Tanimbar Islands. Their survey in this forest lasted 18 days, from late September to mid-October. The three nest trees stood about 1 km apart, and the cockatoo nest cavities were 25–30 m above ground in the trunks. The report names iron tree, New Guinea rosewood and blackboard tree among the trees local people identified as preferred nesting trees for the cockatoos.
Those three trees were also used for nesting by Tanimbar Starlings and Blue-streaked Lories, while pigeons roosted there. At one site, Tanimbar Starlings were repeatedly seen flying into and out of a cockatoo nest cavity. During breeding season, tall forest trees served as nesting or resting places for several bird species.
IUCN Red List · Near Threatened (NT) · Global species-level assessment (Aplonis crassa)
The global IUCN assessment classifies the Tanimbar Starling as Near Threatened (NT). The 2018 assessment reports a decreasing population trend and ongoing declines in range, occupied area, habitat extent or quality, locations and mature individuals. The total number of mature birds is unknown.