This small Hawaiian honeycreeper is endemic to Kauaʻi. A National Park Service account reported one known wild bird and a small captive population in 2024, describing the species as functionally extinct in the wild.
Both sexes are dark gray to olive above and whitish below, with pinkish legs and a short, slightly decurved pink bill.
It gleans insects and spiders by probing bark, lichens, and moss on trunks, branches, and twigs of live and dead ʻōhiʻa and koa trees.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.