WARNING!: THIS POST USES LATIN WORDS TO DESCRIBE SEXUAL ORGANS. If you don't like reading the "p-word," (see below if you are unsure) skip this post. DO NOT READ PAST THIS DOT . For those of you which aren't offended by the occasional use of "penis" and have found that I have left lots of straight lines, you can make sophomoric comments to me privately. (Ok, my ONLY puns on the topic...) I recieved 3 private e-mails asking if bones could actually be found in the male sex organs of carnivores. Yes they can. This bone is called the Os Penis (aka baculla = Os priapi = Os bacullum = Penile bone, and more) and is a characteristic of ALL male members of the Carnivora family, (except for the occasional genetic anomaly), many female members (where it is called the Os clitoris), and most other mammalian families, such as primates, rodents, bats, seals, whales, dolphins.... Well, you get the picture. MOST male mammals have one, many female mammals have the female version, and it is considered an ancestral mammalian trait. Rather indelicately, the function of the Os penis is quite straightforward. In those animals in which sex is rapid and brief, the Os penis makes sure things work rapidly. In those animals in which sex is long and protracted, the Os penis makes sure things work for a long time. Like the femur, each Os penis looks basicaly like the other: a round- or oval-rod, or a V- or U-shaped open tube. It can be mostly straight (canids), s-shaped (lots, including raccoons), or curved at one end (mustelids, including ferrets). These bones are dorsal to the urethra, that is underneath it and closer to the ground in an upright walking animal, and sometimes grow up and around it (the U- and V-shaped ones), so it is easy to see the bone is designed to maintain the integrety of the urethra for the transference of biological by-products of reproduction; whatever THAT may be.... The exact shape and curve of the Os penis is species dependent, and the bone is used frequently to identify the genus and age of the individual to which it once belonged. In fact, there are scores of papers and a couple of books dedicated to such ends; the most work being done by a mammalogist named Burt. Like virtually all Carnivora, 99.995% of male ferrets have an Os penis, and up to 68% of female ferrets have an Os clitoris. It is usually apparent at birth, so sexing ferrets can be done on neonates by the visually-impaired. Push the belly between the male sexual "belly-button" and the sexually generic "pooper-shooter;" if you feel a ridge or rod, that's the Os penis, and the animal is a boy. One e-mail asked if dogs had one, and the answer is "Not if they are female." Yes, you can feel it using the described method, but you have to push harder. Also, they are not burrowing animals, so they have no real reason to get stuff out of the way, so more shows. You might have to push closer to the... well, you get the idea. This is not a bone generally seen by the public at large, but then I doubt that many people know that lots of cows have bones in their heart either. Some problems that might be encountered with the Os penis is the occasional inflamation which may include the urethra (sometimes secondary to kidney or bladder stone problems), and fractures. Yes, they are sometimes broken--a greater danger than expected from wire-mesh cages-- and can cause great problems later if healed improperly. BTW, as a piece of penis-trivia, the families that include cows and deer, elephants, and horses lack the bone, or only have small nonmorphic ossifications, so the bull-*-cane your granddad showed you was not a bone, but the dried organ itself. Oh yeah, the raccoon-*-toothpick was the bone. I once saw a Native American headdress which was decorated with about 500 mink Os penises. The Os penis of the Raccoon was highly prized (after being fashioned into awls) for basket weaving, and as picks for cleaning residue from the hole in the flashpan of black-powder rifles. Many people used whale Os penises as clubs for killing fish or beating up people. In Europe, the polecat Os penis was carved into pins to hold clothing together, and because of its density, as a quill for harpoons and hooks. It was also used, once sharpened, for blood-letting, until ivory became available. Now you'll never be able to watch reruns of "Quantum Leap" or see Scott Baculla on "Murphy Brown" without snickering about his name. Its just fortunate his first name wasn't Richard.... Bob and the 13 Ferrets-O-Fun [Posted in FML issue 1494]