French paleontologist Paul Gervais described the new genus based on a humerus found at Mont Ventoux, near Bédoin, by Prosper Renaux (1793-1852) in 1841. The bone was 90 cm (35.43 in) long, 33 cm (13 in) wide at the proximal end, 15 cm (5.91 in) wide in the middle, and 25 cm (9.84 cm) wide at the distal end. From the same locality, he referred a conical tooth he thought could belong to a larger second species, and from elsewhere added to A. sp. (a practice used to denote that the remains belong to a certain genus, but the species is not known) a partial humerus and ulna. The proximal part of the humerus of Aepisaurus elephantinus is housed in the University of Montpellier (BED01). A plaster cast of the complete specimen is also displayed in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris (MNHN 1868-242).