The body color is highly variable from one individual to another ranging from creamy white to dark brown through redish to yellowish.

The dorsal part of the body is full of small whitish skin growths as well as irregular pale bars.

[4] The ridgenose pipefish is widespread throughout the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-West Pacific from the eastern coast of Africa, Red Sea included, until Salomon Islands and from South Japan to the Great Barrier Reef.

[5] It prefers areas such as reef, sandy bottom or coral rubble with algae or debris in which it can easily hide.

The fish is named in honor of ichthyologist Georg Duncker (1870-1953), of the Zoological Museum Hamburg, who revised the pipefish family in 1915.