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Fossils of Megalograptus were first described by Samuel Almond Miller in 1874. Miller mistakenly believed the fossil material, consisting of a postabdominal (segments 8–12) tergite and two fragments of an appendage, was the integument of a graptolite (a member of Graptolithina, an extinct group of colonial pterobranchs),[3] and gave it the name Megalograptus, meaning "great writing" (deriving from the Greek megale, "great", and graptos, "writing", commonly used for graptolite fossils).[6] One reason for Miller's mistaken identification is that the exact outline of the fossils was unclear because they were not properly cleaned yet.[7] The fragmentary fossils of M. welchi were initially recovered by L. B. Welch, whom the species name welchi honours, near Liberty, Ohio,[3] in rocks of Katian (Late Ordovician) age[2] of the Elkhorn Formation.[3] With the exception of the type material, M. welchi is only fragmentarily known. It is probable that more fossils could have been uncovered if it had been immediately recognized as a large eurypterid. By the time it was recognized as such and the fossils were deemed to be of interest, further work at the fossil site had irreversibly damaged what remained of the eurypterid fossils.[3][7] The status of Megalograptus as a graptolite was first questioned in 1908 by Rudolf Ruedemann, who was researching Ordovician graptolites. Ruedemann instead recognized the remains of M. welchi as eurypterid fossils.[3] That same year, Ruedemann's suspicions were confirmed in discussions with August Foerste and Edward Oscar Ulrich, who also agreed that the fossils were of a eurypterid.[3][7] Foerste was invited to contribute with his understanding of Megalograptus to Ruedemann's and John Mason Clarke's 1912 monograph The Eurypterida of New York.[3] He recognized Megalograptus as similar to the eurypterid Echinognathus clevelandi, assuming them to either be related or of the same genus. The features uniting the two were noted to be the spines of the appendages, the

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