Neochanna cleaveri is found in coastal wetlands of south eastern Australia: around Tasmania, Flinders Island in Bass Strait and southern Victoria particularly Wilsons Promontory.

[4] The fish's range has been significantly reduced, especially in Victoria, due to destruction of suitable habitat through human activity such as swamp reclamation and drainage.

[2][3] Greenish brown in colour, sometimes golden, they are greyish on their ventral surfaces,[2][3] and marked with irregular darker mottled bands and blotches over the back, sides, and fin bases.

Nocturnal in habit and secretive in nature, the fish usually rest during daylight in heavy vegetation or half buried in the muddy substrate.

N. cleaveri can aestivate if water in its location dries up in summer or in times of drought, burying horizontally in the mud or by seeking out moist areas of substrate under rocks and logs.