page_title: Janjucetus
section_title: Discovery and naming
hierarchical_section_title: Janjucetus / Discovery and naming
caption_attribution_description: English: Janjucetus hunderi
context_page_description: Janjucetus is an extinct genus of cetacean, and a basal baleen whale, from the Late Oligocene around 25 million years ago off southeast Australia, containing one species J. hunderi. Unlike modern mysticetes, it possessed large teeth for gripping and shredding prey, and lacked baleen, and so was likely to have been a predator that captured large single prey animals rather than filter feeding. However, its teeth may have interlocked, much like those of the modern-day filter-feeding crabeater seal, which would have allowed some filter-feeding behavior. Its hunting behaviour was probably similar to the modern-day leopard seal, probably eating large fish. Like baleen whales, Janjucetus could not echolocate; however, it did have unusually large eyes, and so probably had an acute sense of vision. 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.
context_section_description: 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. Hunder is said to have seen the brown fossils on a boulder while he surfed. Soon after discovering the site, Hunder and his father removed the boulder and transported it to Monash University for further research. The well-preserved fossil remains, specimen NMV P216929, include a nearly complete skull, mandibles, vertebrae, ribs, scapulae and a radius, and are held in the Museums Victoria Palaeontology Collection in Melbourne. It was formally described by Erich Fitzgerald in 2006, and it represents the most complete Paleogene cetacean fossil from Australia.
caption: Restoration of Janjucetus
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