The holotype and only known specimen (Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio MPEF-PV 1716) was collected from an erosional exposure of fluvial sandstone within the Cañadón Calcáreo Formation on a hill approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) north-northeast of Cerro Cóndor, Chubut Province, in west-central Argentina, South America.

This taxon's very short neck (approximately 40% shorter than other dicraeosaurids and the shortest of any known sauropod) is evidence that this lineage specialized to fill an ecological niche not exploited by other members of this infraorder.

[1] Rauhut et al. (2005, 670) diagnose Brachytrachelopan as differing from all other sauropods in the following respects: "...individual cervical vertebrae being as long as, or shorter in anteroposterior length than, high posteriorly.

2) assigned Brachytrachelopan to the Dicraeosauridae, proposing that, within this clade, it should be considered to have a sister group relationship to the Late Jurassic African taxon Dicraeosaurus, instead of to Amargasaurus from the Lower Cretaceous of South America.

Rauhut et al. (2005, 671) conclude this is indicative of a rapid evolutionary radiation and dispersal of the Dicraeosauridae following the separation of the continents of the Southern and Northern Hemispheres during the latest Middle Jurassic.