It has thick, dark fur and a tail shorter than its head and body. In Kakadu, it is active at night on tidal river floodplains.
The fur is thick, black and brown, and the tail is shorter than the head and body together.
In Kakadu, it is nocturnal and hides by diving into cracks in tidal river floodplains. It feeds on grass stems and sedge roots.
During the 1990–1995 study on the Adelaide River floodplain, rats moved to higher ground when wet-season flooding inundated the backswamp. Eight rats marked in the backswamp were recaptured in adjacent woodland.
In the 1991–1994 Adelaide River study, reproductive females persisted longer in the moist backswamp than on the drier floodplain. Reproduction typically ended in August–September on the floodplain and November–December in the backswamp.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.