It may be found in well-vegetated riverine backwaters, floodplain lagoons, swamps, and isolated pans. This cryptically coloured species feeds on a wide range of prey, including smaller fish, crustaceans, and insects, and hunts by slow stalking. Adults gather in large groups to breed, after which eggs are scattered in suitable places, with no further parental care. The species is capable of surviving in warm, shallow water and may move across high ground in search of better sites in wet weather or at night.[2] This can occur in some numbers and in the Zambezi this species has been observed leaving the river out into freshly flooded grasslands in relatively large numbers, for example 62 specimens were counted from a single mat of vegetation which had been grounded on the riverbank.[1] A study in the Okavango Delta of Botswana this species, and another Anabantid species Microctenopoma intermedium, were found to be the hosts of five species of Trichodinid ectoparasites, four of which were new to science.[3]
