Fossil remains of pterygotid eurypterids, bearing the distinct scale-like ornamentation known from the group, had been reported from eastern Canada as early as 1846, when researcher William Edmond Logan reported the occurrence of an animal "bearing strong resemblance to Murchison's "Pterygotus problematicus"" in Silurian-Devonian deposits of Gaspé, Quebec. The fossils, eventually identified as being exclusively of Devonian age, were first tentatively referred to "P. atlanticus" (now synonymized with "P. anglicus"), which had been discovered in relatively close proximity to the Gaspé fossils, on the account of the "P. atlanticus" material being so fragmentary that it was impossible to tell whether or not they represented the same species. They were described by Loris S. Russell as belonging to the new species "P. gaspesiensis" in 1953.