The Tanimbar Friarbird occurs on Indonesia’s Kai and Tanimbar Islands. Habitat records from forest and village gardens are from Kai. A 2013 survey treated the population now called plumigenis as part of Philemon moluccensis.
A 1859 British Museum catalogue describes one juvenile male then named Tropidorhynchus plumigenis from Ké Island as blackish brown, with yellow or white feather edges around the base of the neck.
On Kai, the population now called plumigenis was recorded in rainforest, open forest and village gardens. The 2013 survey treated it then as part of Philemon moluccensis.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.