They live at deep-sea cold seeps where hydrocarbons (oil and methane) leak out of the seafloor, and are entirely reliant on internal, sulfide-oxidizing bacterial symbionts for their nutrition.

The tube worms extract dissolved oxygen and hydrogen sulfide from the sea water with the crown of plumes.

Several sorts of hemoglobin are present in the blood and coelomic fluid to bind to the different components and transport them to the symbionts.

[2] L. luymesi provides the bacteria with hydrogen sulfide and oxygen by taking them up from the environment and binding them to a specialized hemoglobin molecule.

Unlike the tube worms that live at hydrothermal vents, L. luymesi uses a posterior extension of its body called the root to take up hydrogen sulfide from the seep sediments.