The temnospondyl hunted invertebrates and fish during the late stage Triassic epoch, and somewhat resembles the only other species of the eastern Gondwanan genus Deltasaurus.

The only known evidence of the species was discovered in a drill core in Southwest Australia, near Geraldton, a seemingly improbable event that produced the only known example of Triassic vertebrate fauna in the ecologically exceptional region's Kockatea Formation.

[1][3] The type locality of D. pustulatus is named Beagle Ridge Bore, where the partial remains of a skull with its impression were extracted in a 86 mm core sample of grey-green shale.

[5] The collection of vertebrate fossils in drill cores is a rare event, but greater than the earlier expectations of finds—which had been close to zero—by workers in the field of palaeontology.

The depth of the sample that produced the species type and only fossil material was between 797 and 800 metres, revealed during an examination of a drill core made in a state survey of mineral resources.