Even on well-preserved specimens, there is no sign of a mouth, anus, eyes, legs, antennae, or any other appendages or organs.

[3] Specimens found in what is thought to be life positions indicate that the creature rested on, or possibly in, the sediment in shallow seas.

Pteridium simplex was originally described by Georg Gürich in 1930 published in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft vol.82 p. 637.

Two Pteridinium specimens were found in North Carolina in 1963 by a high school student named John Brattain.

After their discovery, they were misidentified by Joseph St. Jean from the UNC Geology Department as Cambrian trilobites, and were classified as "Paradoxides carolinaensis", until they were discovered to be a species of Pteridinium.