When it comes to the Walrus of the past, “size matters”
Walrus baculum bone sold for $8000 to Ripleys
Fossilized baculum bone from an ancient walrus (Image courtesy of Sfgate)The item was sold to the company that runs the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums. The price will run $9,600 when auction fees are included. [Sfgate, via Boingboing]
Baculum is a bone found in the male sexual organ of most mammals (not in human though). A male walrus’s sexual organ is completely internal but it has one of the largest baculum bones in the animal kingdom.
The auctioned walrus’s balculum was found in northern Siberia, and is from a species of walrus that went extinct 12,000 years ago. It is believed to be the largest known mammal penis fossil.
This is not closing but opening the door to the existence of the largest Walrus from the past. The original article uses the word “extinct” we know this as the discard ploy. The giant animals are not extinct but are direct greater ancestors. I am sure many jokes could come from this, and it may not be a suitable topic of discussion, but there you have it. The evidence “for now” of the giant walrus. . . OK move on, nothing to see here.
~Chris L Lesley
August 27, 2007 | Topics: Bizzare and Weird, Latest News and Buzz, Zoology and Ecology
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