It is known from several skeletons found in the Early Cretaceous (Hauterivian-Barremian) Wessex Formation on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, southern England.

The rocks consisted of plant debris bed L9 within the variegated clays and marls of the Wessex Formation dating from the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago.

In the latter institution paleontologist Alan Jack Charig determined that the bones belonged to two kinds of animal: Iguanodon and a theropod.

The "Iguanodon", later referred to Mantellisaurus and ultimately made the separate genus Brighstoneus, generated the most interest and in the early 1980s a team was sent by the BMNH to secure more of its bones.

A fourth individual found by Nick Oliver is represented by specimen IWCMS 2002.186,[1] consisting of a lower jaw, parts of the cervical vertebrae and limb elements.

Having mistaken the ischium of MIWG 6352 for a pubic bone, Hutt suggested this specimen represented a separate species.

[2] In 1996, Steve Hutt, David Martill and Michael Barker named and described the type species Neovenator salerii.

In view of the large number of individuals involved in the discovery process, it was considered improper to single out one of them as discoverer.

[5] In 2012, teeth indistinguishable from those of the holotype of Neovenator were found in the Angeac lignitic bone bed, France, dating to the Barremian.

[7] Specimen MIWG 4199 indicates an individual with a possible length of about 10 metres (33 ft), but it only consists of a toe phalanx and its position in Neovenator is dubious.

On the eighth and ninth neck vertebrae, at the parapophysis, the lower rib joint facet, the internal camellate structure of the bone is visible.

However, further studies suggested it had more in common with the advanced carcharodontosaurid group of allosaurs, and several studies including a detailed examination of the species by Benson, Carrano and Brusatte in 2010 suggest that it is closely related to the Carcharodontosauridae (in a group called Carcharodontosauria), but is actually closer to the megaraptorans, together with them forming the family Neovenatoridae.

Aerosteon Megaraptor Cladogram after Novas et al., 2013[13] Allosaurus Concavenator Tyrannotitan Chris Barker and colleagues suggested that Neovenator may have possessed integumentary sensory organs on its snout, much as modern waterfowl and crocodilians use to find food in muddy water, based on neurovascular structures found on the skull.

Additionally, Neovenator might have used these integumentary sensory organs in courtship and sensing nest conditions, a technique seen today in most species of crocodilians and megapode birds.

Neovenator perhaps existed alongside other dinosaurs found in the Wessex Formation of the early Cretaceous period, such as Ceratosuchops, Riparovenator, Baryonyx, Polacanthus, Iguanodon and Eotyrannus.

The holotype bones were mixed with those of the herbivorous iguanodontian Brighstoneus and in the dig site also remains of fishes, amphibians, lizards, pterosaurs and Goniopholididae were present.