In this case, hali- has been combined with campus, which is from the Greek word campe, meaning a bend, turn, or curve.

Halicampus zavorensis, for example, is known only from three specimens from the North-west Indian Ocean but it is not known if this reflects rarity or is the result of behaviour (e.g. swimming into clumps of weed when threatened), mimesis (e.g. shape resembling some algae) or crypsis (e.g. mottled and banded brown colour blending into the background).

Along with other members of the family Syngnathidae, they have protective bony or osseous armor plates covering their body surface.

The eggs are incubated within individual skin cells in the brood pouch, hatch, and are released as their yolk sac is exhausted.

In those species about which much is known, these new-born fish become free-swimming pelagic members of the plankton until they are about half-grown, when they settle into their preferred adult habitat.