Cabarzia is known from a single articulated skeleton, missing only the head, neck, and portions of the shoulder, tail, and left limbs. This holotype specimen, NML-G2017/001, was discovered in 1989 by Frank Trostheide, a fossil collector prospecting at the Cabarz Quarry in the Thuringian Forest of Germany. This quarry preserves a large portion of the Goldlauter Formation, which is a sequence of Early Permian red beds, lake sediments, and volcanic layers slightly older than the nearby Artinskian or Kungurian-age red beds of the Tambach Formation.