[2][3] It is a small, slender, livebearing fish, with the elongated lower jaw characteristic of its family.

Wrestling halfbeaks are livebearing fish, the females giving birth to around twenty offspring after a gestation period of about a month.

[10][11] The males of wrestling halfbeaks will fight among themselves by locking jaws, hence their name, for up to thirty minutes.

This species was described as Dermogenys pusillus by Heinrich Kuhl and Johan Coenraad van Hasselt in 1823 with the type locality given as Bogor, Java, the name was subsequently amended to the feminine form.

[12] In the wild, and in large aquaria, the weaker male will quickly disengage and swim away, and fights therefore rarely result in serious injury to either party.