It is mostly nocturnal, feeding on detritus and oligochaete worms which live in the muddy stream bed.

One of these was inside Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, but that population is believed to have been extirpated, as recent surveys have failed to find any examples there.

It probably forms the sister group to a clade comprising J. tiomanensis, J. counsilmani, J. murphyi, J. johorensis, J. gapensis and J. intermedia, from which it separated about 5 million years ago, at a time when the eustatic changes in global sea level may have opened up a land bridge to Singapore.

[5] Johora singaporensis is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Critically Endangered under criteria B1ab(iii)+2ab(iii),[1] which refer to the small size of the remaining populations and the ongoing deterioration of the habitat.

[1] The species' restriction to a single small island is likely to have increased the threat of extinction.