As of 2015, two of the amber specimens were included in the collections of the University of Göttingen, while the third was housed at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

E. brevipalpa is one of six crane fly species in the genus Elephantomyia described from the Baltic amber, the others being E. baltica, E. bozenae, E. irinae, E. longirostris, and E.

The fossil was reexamined and the species redescribed in 2015 by paleoentomologist Iwona Kania of the University of Rzeszów, who examined the holotype and the two additional specimens.

[2] Each palpus is composed of four segments, totaling less than half the length of the glossal lobes on the rostrum.

As the flagellomeres progress from the base to the tip of the antennae they change from squat and crowded together to elongated.