T. walkerae is a predatory species that hunts among the leaf litter on the bottom of flooded forests in the Rio Negro drainage basin.

Due to the poor preservation, no formal description was attempted until many years later, after the discovery of a living population and collection of better specimens.

Based on their morphological analysis they estimated Tarumaniidae to be most likely the sister group of Erythrinidae, the trahira family, but no DNA evidence was available to confirm or deny this.

[1] Tarumania possesses a very unusual swim bladder, divided into eleven separate compartments (as opposed to one or two in most fish) which extends along almost the entire length of the body.

They are well adapted to swim amongst tangled undergrowth, with very mobile pelvic fins that move independently of each other and the ability to twist separately from the rest of the body.