It is based on a partial skeleton from the latest Albian-earliest Cenomanian-age Lower and Upper Cretaceous Belle Fourche Member of the Frontier Formation of Fremont County, Wyoming, USA.

In 1905, Samuel Wendell Williston described FMNH UR88, a partial armored dinosaur skeleton consisting of a maxilla fragment, seven cervical and two dorsal vertebrae, part of a sacrum and both ilia, caudal vertebrae, parts of the scapulae, both humeral heads, portions of an ulna and both radii, a metacarpal, partial tibia, metatarsal, and armor including a shoulder spine and neck ring.

[4] It was reinstated as a valid genus by Ken Carpenter and James Kirkland (1998), who recognized it as having distinct vertebral and armor characteristics.

[2] Tracy Ford took this farther in 2000, assigning it to a new subfamily in Ankylosauridae based on armor characteristics, which he called Stegopeltinae.

[6][7] Because it is so poorly known, at this point all that can be said about the habits and life of Stegopelta is that it was a slow quadrupedal herbivore that fed low to the ground and relied on its armor for defense.