Adult females and juveniles are yellowish brown, with orangey or yellowish fins, and the juveniles have 1-4 longitudinal dark brown stripes along their body. Adult males are greenish grey, sometimes with two or three dark blotches on their sides, and they have bright yellow fins. This species of leatherjacket is considered to be endemic to Australia, although a single specimen has been reported from New Zealand. There is a tendency for their average size to increase with water depth. Juvenile ocean jackets have been caught in seagrass, over bare sand and on rocky reefs.
Adults tend to be absent from seagrass areas.
In northern New South Wales, ocean jackets are occasionally present in reef areas, but in South Australian waters, they are common over sand and coral sea beds. Each season, female ocean jackets averaging 40cm total length produce about 700,000 spherical eggs measuring approximately 0.6mm in diameter when ripe. Some large females can produce up to 2 million eggs. Adult Ocean Jackets are carnivorous, feeding mainly on salps, gastropod molluscs, crustaceans and fish. Fishers have reported that squid are also eaten.