[6] It is a tree with smooth bark, very narrowly elliptic phyllodes, spikes of bright yellow to golden-yellow flowers, and strongly curved to spirally coiled, leathery to woody pods up to 80 mm (3.1 in) long.

[3][4][7] Acacia auriculiformis was first formally described in 1842 by George Bentham in Hooker's London Journal of Botany, from an unpublished description by Allan Cunningham.

[3] Ear-pod wattle grows in sandy or loamy soils near watercourses and swamps in open forest on Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, the north of the Northern Territory, the Central and Western Provinces of New Guinea, and the Kei Islands of Indonesia.

[3][4][7] Extracts of Acacia auriculiformis heartwood inhibit fungi that attack wood.

[10] Aqueous extracts of A. auriculiformis show developmental inhibitory effects on Bactrocera cucurbitae (the melon fly).