It was first described as a new species by William Hilton in 1930 when he found it at Balboa Bay in Newport Beach, California.

[2] Phoronopsis californica lives in a stiff tube encrusted with sand and embedded in sandy or muddy sediment.

At the collar, just below the lophophore or feeding organ, the worm has the marked involution of the epidermis which distinguishes the genus Phoronopsis.

[1] It lives singly and builds its tube in soft sediments varying from mud to coarse sand.

[5] Individual worms are either male or female but little is known of the process of reproduction in this species and the larval form, Actinotrocha californica, has not yet been identified.