 Vulcanodon is known only from a single locality on an island in Lake Kariba, the largest artificial lake in the world, in northern Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The island, located west of Bumi Hills, is called "Island 126 / 127", after early, unpublished lake charts, but has no formal name. The first bone was found by B. A. Gibson of the town of Kariba in July 1969, and an excavation team collected the specimen in October 1969, March 1970 and May 1970. In the later half of 1970, the new find was presented at a scientific symposium in Cape Town and a brief note was published. The find was formally described in July 1972 by palaeontologist Michael Raath. It was one of the first dinosaurs found in Zimbabwe.
