Brazilian biologists André Nemésio of the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia and Rafael R. Ferrari of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais identified the species as distinct, with his findings published in the December 2012 issue of the journal Zootaxa.
The sole known specimen of the leopard-spotted swellshark was collected on April 21, 1988 from Tungkang, Taiwan, by David Ebert, who described it in conjunction with Jayna Schaaf-Da Silva in a 2008 issue of the scientific journal Zootaxa.
In June 2012, the species was described as new to science by Luis A. Coloma et al. in the journal Zootaxa and named in honour of Prince Charles, recognising the Prince's work advocating rainforest conservation.
The new species was termed Chlamydoselachus "sp. A", before being formally described in 2009 by David Ebert and Leonard Compagno, in a paper for the scientific journal Zootaxa.