Greater koa finch and maximum growth of a single species of koa finch. The greater koa finch was a granivore, preferring the pods and seeds of koa ("Acacia koa"). It was also observed eating caterpillars and aalii ("Dodonaea viscosa") seeds. The last confirmed sighting was in 1896, although there were sporadic later reports. Like its close relative the lesser koa finch, this bird lived in small stretches of mesic forest on the Big Island of Hawaii. These forests were dominated by its preferred food source, koa ("Acacia koa"), and were logged and replaced with pasture beginning in 1850. Grazing by cattle inhibited the
Koa people as the centre, they extended north as far as Kynuna. Their western boundary lay around Middleton Creek, wshile to the east, their frontier was at Winton and Sesbania. Their southern limits were around Cork. Neither circumcision nor subincision played any part in the Koa's initiatory rites into manhood. At least one Koa Bora ground, a gibber clearing threaded with portoluca, used to exist close to the homestead on Carisbrooke Station, southwest of Winton. Comparatively little is known of the Koa, and, in one modern tradition of whites in the area, they just 'melted away' when Europeans began to settle in