 As chaetopterid worms do not spend a predetermined amount of time as planktonic larva, it is possible that the specimens found were actually larva that had simply been unable to settle in an appropriate benthic habitat for their species.Their unusual size (five to ten times larger than any known chaetopterid larvae) might indicate they were adults, but all currently known species of chaetopterid adults prefer to live in the benthic environment, and live in parchment-like tubes on the sea floor.Comparison to larval morphology has indicated that the specimens have a close relationship to either genus "Chaetopterus" or genus "Mesochaetopterus", and a phylogenetic tree constructed from mitochondrial and ribosomal DNA sequences from twelve different Chaetopteridae worms found them to be most closely related to other worms of the genus "Chaetopterus".