The only known skeleton (specimen number MACN-N 15) was discovered in February 1984 by Guillermo Rougier during an expedition led by Argentine paleontologist José Bonaparte. This was the eighth expedition of the project "Jurassic and Cretaceous Terrestrial Vertebrates of South America", which was supported by the National Geographic Society and initiated in 1975 to improve on the sparse knowledge of the Jurassic and Cretaceous tetrapod life of South America. The same excursion uncovered the nearly complete skeleton of the horned theropod "Carnotaurus". The discovery site is located in the La Amarga arroyo in the Picún Leufú Department of Neuquén Province in northern Patagonia, south of Zapala. The skeleton stems from sedimentary rocks of the La Amarga Formation, which dates to the Barremian through early Aptian stages of the Early Cretaceous, or around 130 to 120 million years ago.