This tiny antiarch from the Eday Flags is well described by Susan Hemmings(1978) A tail has never been found and possibly it had no tail since it is usually well preserved in well varved fishbeds where other fish show even the most delicate hard to fossilize structures.

This medium sized antiarch is so rare that we only had a head from the collection of the British Geological Survey to show here. More recent David Leather and others collected more dermal plates of this fish from several localities on Orkney. It is found in the Rousay Flagstone Formation and probably also in the top of the Upper Stromness Flagstone Formation.

This fish is known from the lowest part of the Sandwick Fish Bed where it is often found as juvenile specimens together with remains of Dipterus valenciennesi . Probably the fish did not live in the lake but was transported by rivers. In the Moray Firth Area of Scotland many localities are known where Pterichthyodes is found articulated. All these localities indicate more a river than a lake environment. The weathered specimen shown for the Sandwick Fishbed, is unusual large. See also the juvenile specimen from the Sandwick fishbed.. In sediments directly above the Sandwick Fish Bed disarticulated specimens are found but they are extremely rare. The specimen figured below is from Achanarras where also juvenile specimens are found. The flagstones from the Achanarras quarry are all indicating deep lake conditions, most likely almost anoxic and so most fish from there were probably transported.