Until recently, it was thought that all species lived in the sediment on the seabed, subsisting as deposit feeders or suspension feeders. However, the early 21st century has seen the description of a new family, the Torquaratoridae, evidently limited to the deep sea, in which most of the species crawl on the surface of the ocean bottom and alternatively rise into the water column, evidently to drift to new foraging sites. It is assumed that the ancestors of acorn worms used to live in tubes like their relatives Pterobranchia, but that they eventually started to live a safer and more sheltered existence in sediment burrows instead. Some of these worms may grow to be very long; one particular species may reach a length of , although most acorn worms are much smaller. Due to secretions containing elements like iodine, the animals have an iodoform-like smell.