Distinguished from other Whiting, especially the similar looking School Whiting, by multiple dark brown spots on the side with upper spots often joined to lower spots towards the back of the body.
Available wild-caught, it is a marine fish found mainly in sheltered bays and estuaries over mud or silt, especially in mangrove creeks and river mouths, along the east coast to 30m.
Caught mostly off southern Queensland (Moreton Bay), and central to northern NSW, as bycatch of prawn trawling, by haul seine in shallow waters and with hook-and-line. It is endemic to Australia.