This species has an elongated, laterally compressed body with the profile of the head being almost straight from the tip of the moderately pointed snout to behind its eye.

[3] The striped cusk eel occurs from the northern Atlantic waters off the United States, ranging from New England to northeastern Florida.

They occur in inshore waters in Spring and Fall but their wintering habits are little known, they may move offshore or they may be inactive and remain buried in the substrate.

[5] The swim bladder, anterior vertebrae and the dorsal cranial muscles have been modified to form a drum like sound generator, this is sexually dimorphic with the apparatus being different in each sex.

Older juvenile and adult males show a lump on the head caused by hypertrophy of the muscles used to make the drumming sounds they use in courtship.