 The only specimen was found on the Jan Juc beach, where the remains of the extinct whales "Mammalodon", "Prosqualodon" and "Waipatia" have also been discovered.The only known fossil of "Janjucetus" was found in Australia in the late 1990s by a teenaged surfer named Staumn Hunder, near the Victorian township of Jan Juc, in marine sediment that was deposited 27–23.9 million years ago (mya) in the Late Oligocene.The name "Janjucetus hunderi" honours both the township and the discoverer.