First observed in 2005 and formally described in 2009, it occurs more than 500 km (310 mi) north of the nearest previously known population of mountain viscachas in central Peru.

Only a single population is known, found on rocky habitats on Cerro El Ahuaca, an isolated granite mountain in southern Ecuador, and as few as several dozen individuals remain.

The species is threatened by fires and grazing cattle, and the discoverers recommended its conservation status be assessed as critically endangered.

[1] Three years later, Ledesma, Werner, Ángel Spotorno, and Luis Albuja described the population as a new species, Lagidium ahuacaense, on the basis of morphological and DNA sequence differences.

The suture between the premaxillary and frontal bones is more strongly curved than in L. peruanum and the rostrum (front part of the skull) is wider and the interorbital region is narrower than in L. viscacia and L. wolffsohni.

[9] L. ahuacaense is known only from Cerro El Ahuaca, a steep granite inselberg near Cariamanga in Loja Province, southern Ecuador, where it occurs at an altitude of 1,950 to 2,480 m (6,400 to 8,140 ft), but only near rocky surfaces.

[11] Their habitat on Cerro El Ahuaca covers an area around 120 ha (300 acres), and the total population there may not contain more than a few dozen individuals.

[12] The species is threatened by fires, used to maintain crop fields in the vicinity, which frequently get out of control and destroy part of the viscacha's habitat on the Cerro, and by competition for food with grazing cattle.