The bird's natural habitat was limited to the Big Island (Hawaii Island).^[3][4] This bird averaged 9 inches (22.86 cm) in length. It was mostly black with bright yellow feathers on its rump, undertail coverts, shoulders, and legs. There was a white patch on the primaries. It had small, black eyes and was the centerpiece of portraits. It had a slightly decurved blackish bill, some three inches long. Juveniles may have been brown.^[5]

This shy species lived in the forest canopy and fed particularly on nectar of lobelioids from the tree-plant's curved, tubular flowers. The mamo was said to favor feed on the hāhā plant,^[4][7] encompassing Cyanea and Clermontia spp. of lobelioids, but these are also commonly called ‘ōhā^[8] and other authorities refer to the mamo's feeding plant as ‘ōhā, synonymous with ʻōhāhā.^{[9][10][11][a] [b]} There is anecdotal evidence they may have been partly insectivorous.^[16] According to Henry C. Palmer, the bird was also fond of the berries of the hāhā, and ironically the berry juice could be made into birdlime.^[17]

Its call was a long, plaintive whistle.^[18][c]

The mamo was one of the most honored birds in pre-European Hawaiian society. Its yellow feathers were used to create capes and hats (featherwork) for royalty.^[19] Feather collecting contributed to the bird's decline. The famous yellow cloak of Kamehameha I is estimated to have taken the reigns of eight monarchs and the golden feathers of 80,000 birds to complete.^[19]

The natives caught the bird by noose or by birdlime, and would lure it by imitating its call.^[20] The call is said to be "a single rather long and plaintive note"^[18] so this may have been a song rather than a call.^[4] The Hawaiian recipe for their sticky birdlime consisted of sap from breadfruit (Hawaiian: ʻulu)^[21][22][23] and lobelioids (ʻōhā).^[21][24]

The native feather-hunter (poe kawili) had developed (at the behest of King Kamehameha^[22][15]) the practice of sparing and releasing any birdlime-caught birds with only a few (yellow) feathers to be harvested, namely the ʻōʻō and the mamo.^[25][26] However by the 19th century, the kapu against killing mamo and ʻōʻō was not being strictly observed and these birds were being eaten by natives, as ornithologist Henry W. Henshaw suspected,^[15] and native historian David Malo has confirmed.^[27] Henshaw attributes the acceleration towards extinction to adoption of shotgun-hunting over traditional birdliming.^[15]

Due to their bright colors, the birds were also popular with European collectors.

European settlers changed the mamo's habitat to support agriculture and cattle ranching, which damaged the bird's food source. Cattle roamed loose in the forests, destroying the understory ecosystem. Small Indian mongooses were introduced to control rats, but they also preyed on native birds. Even though this was discovered early and was well known to the Hawaiians, the mamo quickly disappeared.

Introduced disease may have killed any birds that survived habitat destruction. There are many specimens of this bird in American and European museums. The bird had not been particularly scarce until the 1880's.^[20][28] But the last live specimen was obtained by Henry C. Palmer in 1892 (this birds has been reported as tame unafraid when captured;^[20] Palmer's specimen fed on "sugar and water eagerly", and would stay perched on a twig in the tent^[20]).^[29][32] The last confirmed sighting dates to July 1898 near Kaumana on the Island of Hawaiʻi, as reported by a collector, Henry W. Henshaw,^[33] Henshaw in correspondence to Rothschild revealed that when he spotted and he stalked a family of them, he actually shot and wounded one of them, though it escaped.^[34][35]

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