Members of genus Toxicocalamus are venomous, with fixed front-fangs (a dental arrangement known as proteroglyphous), but are not known to be a threat to humans, being unaggressive, of modest size, and secretive.

[1] Although most species of Toxicocalamous are believed to be diurnal, they are fossorial, or semi-fossorial, in habit and rarely encountered.

The natural history of many species of Toxicocalamus is almost entirely undocumented, due to a paucity of specimens and the infrequence of their encounter in the field.

These former genera, Apistocalamus, Apisthocalamus, Pseudapistocalamus, Pseudapisthocalamus, Ultrocalamus, and Vanapina, are now synonyms of Toxicocalamus.

T. loriae is frequently encountered in the Highlands, where large numbers have been collected in village gardens along the Wahgi River valley of Simbu Province, PNG.

[23] Toxicocalamus grandis is also only known from its holotype, collected on the Setakwa River, western New Guinea, in 1912, (the only species represented by a type specimen west of the WNG/PNG border), and T. pumehanae is also only known from its holotype, from the Managalas Plateau, Oro Province, PNG,.