Barasaurus besairiei, the type species of the Barasaurus, was first described and named by the French paleontologist Jean Piveteau in 1955 on the basis of the holotype MNHN P1, a natural mold of a nearly complete skeleton, missing only the tail and distal limb reposited in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris.
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They were collected from the "Couches à Poissons et Ammonites" Member of the Middle Sakamena Formation at the only currently known amniote locality of the Diego Basin, Antsiranana of northwestern Madagascar, dating to the Induan stage of the early Early Triassic period.