Although originally considered a subspecies of A. ramidus, in 2004 anthropologists Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Gen Suwa, and Tim D. White published an article elevating A. kadabba to species level on the basis of newly discovered teeth from Ethiopia.

[3] Fossil remains were first described in 2001 by Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie based on bones collected from five localities in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia.

[8] Evolutionary tree according to a 2019 study:[9] Chimpanzee Ardipithecus A. afarensis P. aethiopicus P. boisei P. robustus A. africanus H. floresiensis A. sediba H. habilis Other Homo A. kadabba is known from nineteen specimens which reveal elements of the teeth, jaw, feet, and hands and arms.

The loss of this feature in the successor species of Ardipithecus ramidus has been used for the allocation of discoveries in that line of development of great apes that led to the australopithecines and the genus Homo.

The first description suggested that Ardipithecus kadabba lived in a habitat that consisted of forests, wooded savannas, and open water areas, as had been described for Sahelanthropus.