Collected by David Walker Barker in July 1974 and responsible for damage to the suspension of a vehicle at the time! I had also collected one of these giant Carboniferous fish in the 1970s, from Elland Brickpit (but donated it to the Ludlow Museum) and we would compare notes on our collecting trips in the northern Carboniferous.

In addition to his passion for geology, David was a remarkable artist. Read more here https://land2.leeds.ac.uk/people/walker-barker/ and here https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/the-ruskin/exhibitions/david-walker-barker/ .

The bone structure of the skull in this dorsal view is clearly seen, including parietals, postorbitals, post-parietals, extrascapulars and operculars.

The scale of this osteolepiform rhipidistian fish is spectacular in comparison with the familiar Devonian Osteolepis. In life, this fish would have been 1.5 m or more in length, judging by the skull-to-body proportions of the complete 1883 specimen held by Leeds Museum (Miall 1885).