 George C. Munro collected the only known specimen of this species in 1913, which is housed in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and saw the species only twice more, once in 1916 and for a final time in 1918.No other sightings have been reported.They inhabited montane dry forests dominated by akoko ("Euphorbia" species) and ōpuhe ("Urera glabra").