Bathornis veredus was named by Wetmore (1927). Its type specimen is Denver Mus. Nat. Hist. 805, a limb element (distal portion of a tarsometatarsus), and it is a 3D body fossil. Its type locality is Trigonias Quarry, which is in a Chadronian fluvial-lacustrine volcaniclastic in the Chadron Formation of Colorado. It is the type species of Bathornis.