An expedition from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science and the State Museum of Pennsylvania, led by Robert Michael Sullivan, discovered a number of Z. sanjuanensis fossils in the Kirtland Formation in 2011.
In 2014 Victoria Megan Arbour, Michael Burns, Robert Sullivan, Spencer Lucas, Amanda Cantrell, Joshua Fry and Thomas Suazo named the type species Ziapelta sanjuanensis.