Nepenthes mikei was discovered on Mount Pangulubao in September 1989 by Bruce Salmon, Mike Hopkins, and Ricky Maulder, during a Nepenthes expedition to Sumatra. On this trip, the team also found two other undescribed Nepenthes taxa on the mountain: N. ovata and a plant they named N. xiphioides. The latter is now considered a heterotypic synonym of N. gymnamphora.