This Australian honeyeater moves in search of flowering shrubs in dry country. Males are black and white; females are grey-brown and white.
The male is black and white, with a white wing-bar, rump and tail panels and a bluish-grey wattle below the eye. The female is grey-brown with a white abdomen and pale feather edges on the wing.
It visits acacia, mallee and spinifex shrubs when they flower, feeding mainly on nectar from emu-bushes. It moves widely as flowering is irregular.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.