Coturnipes cooperi is one of the difficult London Clay bird species founded on a single end of a foot bone. It is based on a distal tarsometatarsus and has resisted secure placement within a modern order or family. Recent comparisons show that superficially similar Walton material should not simply be folded into this species.

The fossil therefore tells us little about ecology beyond showing a small bird capable of ordinary terrestrial perching or walking. Any more specific reconstruction of diet, habitat or locomotion would be speculative. The name remains useful for the diagnostic type morphology, but it should be applied conservatively.