It was collected at Les Télots, near Autun of France, from a terrestrial horizon dating to the Asselian stage of the Cisuralian series, about 299-296.4 million years old.

They synonymized many genera, including Callibrachion (from Margenne near Autun, France), Datheosaurus (from Nowa Ruda of Poland), Palaeohatteria and Pantelosaurus (both from Germany), with Haptodus, but retained these taxa as distinct species.

[1][4][5] Haptodus garnettensis was named based on the holotype RM 14156, a partially articulated skeleton (cranial and postcranial) of an immature individual.

[6] Another species, Haptodus grandis, was named from a maxilla (Gz 1071) found in Pennsylvanian to Cisuralian deposits in Kenilworth, England, by Roberta Paton in 1974.

[7] In his 2015 dissertation revising the basal Sphenacodontia, Frederik Spindler demonstrated that H. garnettensis and H. grandis do not belong in the same genus as H. baylei and instead represent distinct genera.