During the late 1980s, a field crew from the Universidad Nacional Tucumán, led by Jaime Powell, uncovered forty kilometres south of Roca City, in Río Negro province, northern Argentina, the remains of a theropod near the Salitral Ojo de Agua. In 2001, Rodolfo Aníbal Coria named and described the type species Quilmesaurus curriei. The genus name is derived from the Quilme, a Native American people, and the specific name honours Dr. Philip John Currie, a Canadian theropod specialist.[1]