Episode 53 - The Baculum (Penis Bone)

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2019

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's been called the most diverse of all bones. It comes in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes, living and fossil, scattered across the mammalian family tree. It's called the baculum, the os penis, and in this episode we discuss what it does, who has it, what it means for paleontologists, and the evolutionary processes that made it what it is today. In the news: whales eating whales, pregnant plesiosaurs, robo-tetrapods, and the first American dogs. Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:05:30Main discussion, Part 1: 00:34:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:15:00 Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures: http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ Follow and Support us on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduw The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Muscial Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will.
0:21.9	Hello, David.
0:29.5	And hello, listeners, and welcome to episode 53 of the Common Descent Podcast.
0:30.5	Woohoo!
0:36.1	This episode, we are talking about the baculum.
0:45.7	This is exciting, because we've never actually done an episode dedicated entirely to a body part.
0:47.1	And what a body part.
0:49.0	And what a body part.
0:59.2	Folks, if you are not familiar with the baculum, it is a.k.A.d. as the os penis, or the penis bone.
1:05.0	Yeah, if that wasn't subtle, if that was a little too subtle for you, it is indeed the penis bone. The baculum is a bone found in mammals exclusively, and it's an incredibly unique osteological feature, which
1:16.3	is interesting to us as paleontologists, but also as people who are interested in animal anatomy,
1:22.8	the baculum has been described as the most diverse bone ever. Wow. Yep. That's something I don't know if I would
1:30.8	have guessed that. That's really cool. It comes in all sorts of crazy shapes and sizes. It has it
1:37.2	evolution is really interesting. Its presence in the fossil record. We'll talk a little bit about
1:43.4	that because it's rare and you'll see why as we start talking about it, but it's been part of some pretty interesting studies.
1:51.1	So we're going to talk all about this enigmatic, interesting bone in the body, and we will, before the end of this episode, make mention of the Baculum's mysterious
2:03.7	sister.
2:06.2	But more on that later.
2:08.2	This episode, suggestion came from an email from Emily B.
2:14.0	I have never been so excited to receive an email from one of our listeners.
2:18.4	Listeners who have sent us emails, we love all of your emails.
	...

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