+Mirumir Subscriber¹ Posted December 14, 2016 Subscriber¹ Share Posted December 14, 2016 Quote A Most Interesting Bone Let me just say at the outset that this post is about the baculum. Some of you may not want to read about the bone found in the penises of many mammal species. I want to give you a chance to head off for tamer blogs. But you might want to stick around. There’s some real science below–and some evolution in action. *** Last week in the New York Times I wrote about the evolution of monogamy (here and here). The occasion for the articles were two new studies in which scientists analyzed hundreds or thousands of species of mammals, tracing the evolution of monogamy and other social arrangements. This big-picture approach to evolution can yield some important insights, but the finer details are hard to make out. If you look at us humans (monogamy, polygamy, and assorted other stuff) versus chimpanzees (monogamy is for losers!), you’re only looking at the tips of two deep branches. Chimpanzees may be our closest living relatives, but our common ancestor with them lived about seven million years ago. After the two lineages split from that ancestor, they’ve been evolving in different directions ever since. We can make some inferences about what that evolution was like based on ourselves, chimpanzees, and other living mammal species. But this kind of research doesn’t give us a visceral sense of how the sexual habits of mammals evolve from generation to generation... Why don't humans have a penis bone? Scientists may now know Why do some mammals have a bone in their penises? What Happened to the Bone in Our Boners? Monogamy, Research Suggests Postcopulatory sexual selection influences baculum evolution in primates and carnivores Draconian Guppy 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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