Natural History

I asked this “Identify” a long time ago. If you think this is any kind of tusk or horn, you are mistaken.

It is a fossilized walrus baculum that was found in Siberia. It has been dated to be 12,000 years old.

It is believed to have been the largest baculum that ever existed. Modern walruses have the largest baculums of any extant animal, and this fossil comes from a species of walrus that no longer exists.

What’s a baculum?

Well, humans don’t have them. Whales and dolphins don’t either. Horses don’t either.  But dogs have them. So do chimps and gorillas.

Most mammals have them.

If you’ve ever heard the word “boning” to refer to sexual intercourse, it’s not correct for humans.

However, for animals in which the males have a baculum, they really do “bone.”

The baculum is a bone that is found within the penis of most male mammals.

Of the mammals with baculums, walruses have the largest penises. I know this because when I was about five years old, my parents took me to the Cincinnati Zoo. They had a big walrus tank, where you could see them swimming under water. I had just learned the proper term for the male anatomy, and when I saw the male walrus swimming by, I shouted “Dad, look at the size of that thing’s penis!”   Dad was filming me on camcorder, and this is on tape!  I cannot dispute it.

One of my dad’s friend’s in high school, took a baculum from a male raccoon and put it on a leather necklace. He wore the baculum necklace where ever he went — I guess as a fertility symbol–and they started call him “‘Coon.”

Native Alaskan cultures do use these bones from walruses and other marine mammals to make decorative knife handles and other tools. These decorative baculums are called oosik.