They lived along the shores of the Western Interior Seaway, but it is not clear whether they were seabirds or freshwater birds, as the genus is only known from a humerus.

T. clemensi is represented by a single fossil specimen, a partial humerus (upper arm bone) recovered from the Lance formation of Wyoming.

Torotix was first described by Brodkorb in 1963, who initially suggested that it was related to modern flamingos, in the order Phoenicopteriformes.

[3] A cladistic study of the wing bone found Torotix not to resemble that of the waved albatross (a procellariiform), northern gannet (of the order Suliformes), painted buttonquail (an ancient charadriiform), black-necked stilt (a more advanced charadriiform) or a Phoenicopterus flamingo noticeably more than any other.

However, the former is now considered a junior synonym of Baptornis (a hesperornithine), while the latter may be a very early fowl of the group Galloanserae.