The baculum (also penis bone, penile bone, or os penis, os genitale or os priapi) is a bone found in the penis of many placental mammals. It is absent from the human penis, but present in the penises of some primates, such as the gorilla and chimpanzee. The os penis arises from primordial cells within soft tissues of the penis, and its formation is largely under the influence of androgens. The bone is located above the male urethra, and it aids sexual reproduction by maintaining sufficient stiffness during sexual penetration. The homologue to the baculum in female mammals is known as the baubellum or os clitoridis (also os clitoris), a bone in the clitoris.
Etymology
The word baculum meant "stick" or "staff" in Latin and originated from Greek: βάκλον, baklon "stick".
Function
The baculum is used for copulation and varies in size and shape by species. Its evolution may be influenced by sexual selection, and its characteristics are sometimes used to differentiate between similar species. A bone in the penis allows a male to mate for a long time with a female, which can be a distinct advantage in some mating strategies. The length of the baculum may be related to the duration of copulation in some species. In carnivorans and primates, the length of the baculum appears to be influenced by postcopulatory sexual selection. In some bat species, the baculum can also protect the urethra from compression.
Presence in mammals
Mammals having a penile bone (in males) and a clitoral bone (in females) include various eutherians:
- Order Primates, although not in lorises,humans, spider monkeys, or woolly monkeys
- Order Rodentia (rodents), though not in the related order Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares, etc.)
- Order Eulipotyphla (insectivores, including shrews and hedgehogs)
- Order Carnivora (including members of many well-known families, such as ursids (bears),canids (dogs),pinnipeds (walruses, seals, sea lions),procyonids (raccoons etc.),mustelids (otters, weasels, skunks and others)). The baculum is usually longer in the Canoidea than in the Feloidea, although fossas have long bacula and giant pandas have short bacula.
- Order Chiroptera (bats).
It is absent in humans, ungulates (hoofed mammals),elephants, monotremes (platypus, echidna),marsupials,lagomorphs,hyenas,binturongs,sirenians, and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), among others.
Evidence suggests that the baculum was independently evolved 9 times and lost in 10 separate lineages. The baculum is an exclusive characteristic of placentals and closely related eutherians, being absent in other mammal clades, and it has been speculated to be derived from the epipubic bones more widely spread across mammals, but notoriously absent in placentals.
Among the primates, marmosets, weighing around 500 grams (18 oz), have a baculum measuring around 2 millimetres (0.079 in), while the tiny 63 g (2.2 oz) galago has one around 13 millimetres (0.51 in) long. The great apes, despite their size, tend to have very small penis bones, and humans are the only ones to have lost them altogether.
In some mammalian species, such as badgers and raccoons (Procyon lotor), the baculum can be used to determine relative age. If a raccoon's baculum tip is made up of uncalcified cartilage, has a porous base, is less than 1.2 g (0.042 oz) in mass, and measures less than 90 mm (3.5 in) long, then the baculum belongs to a juvenile.
Absence in humans
Unlike most other primates, humans lack an os penis or os clitoris, but the bone is present, although much reduced, among the great apes. In many ape species, it is a relatively insignificant 10–20 mm (0.39–0.79 in) structure. Cases of human penis ossification following trauma have been reported, and one case was reported of a congenital os penis surgically removed from a 5-year-old boy, who also had other developmental abnormalities, including a cleft scrotum.Clellan S. Ford and Frank A. Beach in Patterns of Sexual Behavior (1951), p. 30 say, "Both gorillas and chimpanzees possess a penile bone. In the latter species, the os penis is located in the lower part of the organ and measures approximately three-quarters of an inch in length." In humans, the rigidity of the erection is provided entirely through blood pressure in the corpora cavernosa. An "artificial baculum" or penile implant is sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction in humans.
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposed honest advertising as the evolutionary explanation for the loss of the baculum. The hypothesis states that if erection failure is a sensitive early warning of ill health (physical or mental), females could have gauged the health of a potential mate based on his ability to achieve erection without the support of a baculum.
The tactile stimulation hypothesis proposes that the loss of the baculum in humans is linked to the female choice for tactile stimulation: a boneless penis would be more flexible, facilitating a larger range of copulatory positions and whole body movement, giving females greater general physical stimulation.
The mating system shift hypothesis proposes that the shift towards monogamy as the dominant reproductive strategy may have reduced the intensity of copulatory and post-copulatory sexual selection, and made the baculum obsolete.
Humans "evolved a mating system in which the male tended to accompany a particular female all the time to try to ensure paternity of her children" which allows for frequent matings of short duration. Observation suggests that primates with a baculum only infrequently encounter females, but engage in longer periods of copulation that the baculum makes possible, thereby maximizing their chances of fathering the female's offspring. Human females exhibit concealed ovulation, also known as hidden estrus, meaning it is almost impossible to tell when the female is fertile, so frequent matings would be necessary to ensure paternity.
Strengths and weaknesses of these hypotheses were revised in a 2021 study, which also proposed an alternative hypothesis: that conspecific aggression, in combination with the development of self-awareness, may have played a role in the loss. If the presence of a baculum exacerbated the prevalence and severity of penile injuries resulting from blunt trauma to a flaccid penis, increasing ability to foresee the consequences of their actions would also enable hominins to realise that these injuries are a useful tool in male-male competition. This behavioural innovation, planned conspecific aggression with the goal of temporary exclusion of competitors from the breeding pool, would create an environment in which a genetic mutation for a penis without a baculum (or with an unossified baculum) would strongly increase the fitness of the mutant phenotype. Along with the hominin propensity for social learning and cultural transmission, this hypothetical scenario may explain why this phenotype became fixed in all human populations.
An alternative view is that its loss in humans is an example of neoteny during human evolution; late-stage fetal chimpanzees lack a baculum.
Cultural significance
The existence of the baculum is unlikely to have escaped the notice of pastoralist and hunter-gatherer cultures.
It has been argued that the "rib" (Hebrew צֵלׇע ṣēlā', also translated "flank" or "side") in the story of Adam and Eve is actually a mistranslation of a Biblical Hebrew euphemism for baculum, and that its removal from Adam in the Book of Genesis is a creation story to explain this absence (as well as the presence of the perineal raphe – as a resultant "scar") in humans.
In hoodoo, the folk magic of the American South, the raccoon baculum is sometimes worn as an amulet for love or luck.
Oosik
Oosik is a term used in Native Alaska cultures to describe the bacula of walruses, seals, sea lions and polar bears. Sometimes as long as 60 cm (24 in), fossilized bacula are often polished and used as a handle for knives and other tools. The oosik is a polished and sometimes carved baculum of these large northern carnivores.
Oosiks are also sold as tourist souvenirs. In 2007, a 4.5 ft-long (1.4 m) fossilized penis bone from an extinct species of walrus, believed by the seller to be the largest in existence, was sold for $8,000.
The late United States Congressman for Alaska, Don Young, was known for possessing an 18 inch walrus oosik, and once brandished it like a sword during a congressional hearing.
See also
- Penile spines
- Mammal penis
- Argumentum ad baculum – Latin expression describing an argument based on the use of force.
Further reading
- Gilbert SF, Zevit Z (July 2001). "Congenital human baculum deficiency: the generative bone of Genesis 2:21–23". Am. J. Med. Genet. 101 (3): 284–5. doi:10.1002/ajmg.1387. PMID 11424148.
- Clellan S., Frank A. Beach (1951). Patterns of Sexual Behavior. New York: Harper, and Paul B. Hoeber, Inc. Medical Books. ISBN 978-0-313-22355-6.
External links
- Beresford WA, Burkart S (December 1977). "The penile bone and anterior process of the rat in scanning electron microscopy". J. Anat. 124 (3): 589–97. PMC 1234656. PMID 604330.
- The San Diego Zoo's Conservation and research for endangered species projects. 'What is the significance of the baculum in animals?'
- On the evolution of the mammalian baculum: vaginal friction, prolonged intromission or induced ovulation?
- The structure of the penis with the associated baculum in the male greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus)
- Panciroli, Elsa (24 January 2018). "How do you sex a fossil? | Elsa Panciroli". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 January 2018.