Nepenthes attenboroughii was discovered by Alastair S. Robinson, Stewart R. McPherson and Volker B. Heinrich in June 2007, during a 2 month research expedition to catalogue the different species of pitcher plant found across the Philippine Archipelago [REF].
The formal description of N. attenboroughii was published in February 2009 in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.