The Adelaide River is well known for its high concentration of saltwater crocodiles, along with other wildlife including white-bellied sea eagles, whistling kites, freshwater crocodiles, bull sharks and black flying-fox.

Its lower reaches form part of the Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains Important Bird Area.

[3] Indigenous Australians including the Warray and Kungarakan owned the lands among the river for millennia.

Lieutenant Fitzmaurice, under the command of John Lort Stokes, sighted the river on a boating expedition.

The expedition was part of the Admiralty surveying ship HMS Beagle's voyage in 1839, and the river was named in honour of Queen Adelaide.