The type species, D. forbesi, from England, Bohemia, and Sweden, was discovered and described by the French paleontologist, Joachim Barrande in 1850.

The defensive value of these highly elongate spines is also apparent, as they would have stuck in the throats of vertebrate predators, such as the Silurian acanthodian Nostolepis.

Cheirurids had the ability to enroll to protect their softer ventral area, and the spines would have thrust upward and outward.

Because some of the other highly derived cheirurid trilobites, such as the Devonian Crotalocephalus and Cybelloides of the Ordovician, have been interpreted as being swimmers or plankters, the species of Deiphon have been popularly thought of as being planktonic, as well.

If it were a nektonic or planktonic trilobite, the spherical glabellum, coupled with its rib cage-like pleural lobes and spine-like cephalon cheeks would have presented serious impediments to its hydrodynamic ability, and would have been either a drifter, or a very leisurely swimmer, feeding on phytoplankton, or slow-moving zooplankton.