Malaita to have only reached the western Solomon Islands. However, Malaita has not been archaeologically examined, and a chronology of its prehistory is difficult to establish. In the traditional account of the Kwara'ae, their founding ancestor arrived about twenty generations ago, landed first on Guadalcanal, but followed a magical staff which led him on to the middle of Malaita, where he established their cultural norms. His descendents then dispersed to the lowland areas on the edges of the island. First recorded sighting by Europeans of Malaita was by the Spaniard Álvaro de Mendaña on 11 April 1568. More precisely the sighting
Choiseul pigeon claimed that the species was very tame, allowing local hunters to approach it and pick it up off of its perch by hand. They reported that the species had stones in its gizzard. It laid a single dark, cream-coloured egg in an unlined depression on the ground. The egg was about in size, which is considered small in proportion to the bird. The Choiseul pigeon was non-migratory and is thought to have lived on the forest floor in lowland forests, including coastal swampy areas that lacked mangroves. The Choiseul pigeon is usually considered to have been endemic to the island