This fantail is recorded in the Solomon Islands and on Bougainville. It inhabits closed forest from lowlands to hills.
The 1892 description of an adult male gives a black back, throat and upper breast, with a white belly and undertail.
It uses closed-canopy lowland and hill forest, including primary and tall secondary forest; records reach about 1,150 m.
Accounts describe it as fairly uncommon and seldom present in heavily degraded forest.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.