 The spined pygmy shark was one of many new species discovered during the course of the 1907–1910 Philippine Expedition of the U.S.Fish Commission Steamer "Albatross".It was described by American ichthyologists Hugh McCormick Smith and Lewis Radcliffe in a 1912 paper for the scientific journal "Proceedings of the United States National Museum", based on two specimens collected in Batangas Bay, south of Luzon in the Philippines.