Does Bigfoot Have A Bone In Its Penis?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 4th, 2010
If you go deeply into the backchannel “invisible college” that occurs within Sasquatch studies and scholarship, you might be surprised by the level of intellectual interplay that is often present in that realm. As an example, let me share with you an ongoing debate that is taking place right now. Here’s an exclusive peek.
Idaho professor of anatomy and anthropology Jeff Meldrum and California registered nurse Bobbie Short are conducting an exchange about what makes Sasquatch/Bigfoot what they are. It has included whether or not Bigfoot has a bone (called a baculum) in the penis of the males. (Visual examples of the baculum of some mammals are infrequently published and sold to museums; see here.)
In the most recent round, Ms. Short corrected Dr. Meldrum on a point of inaccuracy, and he stood corrected. See here for what has transpired thusfar.
However, most currently, Dr. Meldrum feels that Ms. Short “misrepresented the details of the matter and posted a rather misleading retort.”
Dr. Meldrum, therefore, thinks that the correct airing of the following at Cryptomundo will assist in straightening out the record appropriately.
What you find below is complete with illustrations, from Dr. Meldrum. It is given in plain text, as is, so as to retain Dr. Meldrum’s embedded italics, in situ, used by him for emphasis and with Latin phrases/words.
**************
A Reply to the Sasquatch and the Baculum by Jeff Meldrum
Bobbie Short is correct in pointing out my misspeak. Indeed, a very modest penis bone is found generally among monkeys and apes, although greatly reduced or sometimes absent in great apes. My point was, and let’s be clear – this is a vestigal structure in apes, even in monkeys, by comparison to other mammals. Its size and contribution to erection is minimal at best. Schultz states “…in the great apes it has become reduced to a slender rudiment, measuring, e.g., only 11 mm in full-grown gorilla…” (Schultz, 1969 p. 177). That’s a mere 3/8 inch long. It is limited to the glans. Its contribution to successful intromission is minimal to non-existent!
Swindler and Wood do not even figure an os penis in their depiction of a chimpanzee (Swindler and Wood, 1982, p. 229):
In dogs and primates at least, it is not a retractable structure. It resides within the distal portion of the penis. It develops as an ossification of the fused distal ends of the corpora cavernosa. The statement that the baculum is a bone that “facilitates an erection without blood” is altogether incorrect. The dorsal veins of the penis constrict and the corpora cavernosa engorge with blood during an erection in mammals with a baculum, just as in humans without one. The baculum assists in erection in mammals where the size and length provide a significant contribution. It does not replace tumescence due to vascular congestion, particularly not among the great apes.
Dog. (Evans and de Lahunta, p. 226).
It is relatively large in primitive primates, i.e., prosimians, such as the lemur pictured below. Following are additional figures illustrating the diminutive size in monkeys (baboon and macaque).
Lemur. (Osman Hill, 1972, p. 113).
Baboon. (Swindler and Wood, p. 228)
Macaque. (Hartman and Straus, 1933, p. 238)
The assertion that the Sasquatch lacks a baculum or has a vestigial and variably present one, is a point of inference that remains highly speculative at present. The implications of its presence or absence as a rudiment are overstated by Short. It should be noted that according to Schultz, the baculum is lacking in tarsiers, woolly monkeys, spider monkeys, in addition to humans. Its presence or absence does not constitute a sole basis for a line of demarcation between humans and apes.
My query as to why the caller posed this question was not to embarrass him. The relevance of his question was unclear to me. He was not able to articulate from whence his interest stemmed. After reading Short’s essay I see, although I do not agree with, the rationale. I have avoided participation in the discussions of near-ape versus near-human status of sasquatch because those most dogmatic in their opinions are often highly emotional in their convictions, frequently based on highly subjective personal experiences or assertions. Sasquatch is not human because it were to walk bipedally, or lack a baculum, or even have primitive language. Similar arguments raged over the taxonomic status of neandertals – Homo sapiens neandertalensis? or Homo neandertalensis? It has only been conclusively decided since the sequencing of its DNA, which shows it is a distinct species that avoided widespread admixture for over 10 millennia of cohabitation in Europe. Until we have DNA sequence data for Sasquatch the point remains moot.
References:
Evans, HE and de Lahunta, A. Miller’s Guide to the Dissection of the Dog. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1988.
Hartman, CG and Straus, Jr., WL (eds.). The Anatomy of the Rhesus Monkey. New York: Hafner, 1933.
Osman Hill, WC. Evolutionary Biology of the Primates. New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Schultz, AH. The Life of the Primates. New York: Universe Books, 1969.
Swindler, DR and Wood, CD. An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing, 1982.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Truly fascinating but only to the true Bigfoot enthusiasts who want structure and credidibilty in establishing the true identity of our favorite cryptid. I ask this of Dr. Meldrum and forgive me if it is a juvenile but can even be answered by Loren too:
Is it possible to look into this question to what we think Bigfoot is Gigantopithicus blacki and see if the species itself had a vestigial penis bone? I’ve heard of recent posts where dinosaur DNA has been extracted so can we get this from our Bigfoot cousin/brother/similcrum and see if the results match? I think their last visits were a little over 1 million years ago and certainly valid as an investigational tool.
I think,…does his Penis even exist?? is a better question.
Talk about putting the cart ahead of the horse. I guess this is assuming eight foot tall bipedal ape-men actually exist.
Why not speculate on Bigfoot’s favorite color? 😉
Isn’t it considered “bad science” to even discuss something that can’t be proven? Shouldn’t we go out and find one first? Does it do us any good to discuss any of these types of things? I’m sorry, I always figured such discussions can wait until there is at least proof of their existence.
Loren—
I must admit that while intellectually I think this is fascinating, I couldn’t help but find this “unintentionally” VERY funny. Hope you don’t mind.
I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud throughout the reading of the post. Sorry about that.
To get back to the “possibility” of this:
“Talk about putting the cart ahead of the horse. I guess this is assuming eight foot tall bipedal ape-men actually exist.”
I think that is a pretty good assumption there from Cryptoraptor, ultimately.
But what can one do??? People will discuss what they want to discuss. “Shrug.”
Maybe the ultimate “standard” to the whole question would MAYBE be the “Redwoods” footage???
Ole Hairy looks to have a “boneless” appendage there. 🙂
But then, what do I know??? Until Ole Hairy is verified and studied properly one cannot know for certain. 🙂
Cryptoraptor responded:
I think this is a great point as well, but everyone knows that Bigfoot’s favorite color is Magenta. Bigfoot’s least favorite colors would be grey and brown, thus all the broken tree limbs.
LOL…
I have a racoon penis bone. They are supposed to be good luck.
Does Bigfoot have a penis? No reason to believe so at this time and no real need to even ponder such yet. Prove the creature exists and then leave that and similar line of questioning for the autopsey.
>“But then, what do I know??? Until Ole Hairy is verified and studied properly one cannot know for certain. “
Not only that, but we would need to examine a large group of specimens to really have a good idea of the species’ taxonomy. Who’s to say the Redwood male (if it was indeed a Bigfoot) didn’t suffer a terribly embarrassing accident during his youth, and hence is a shaftless Squatch? 😛
“shaftless Squatch” I am speechless.
I gots to laugh.
We don’t know if the animal’s real…and we’re talking about THIS?
Lemme guess: Bobbie brought this up. It seems just what a nonscientist who doesn’t think about all aspects of this in the right way might do. (As noted above, she does indeed consider the sasquatch human based on the footprints. And birds are bats because they have wings.)
I might read the links. But wow. Could we focus on getting a specimen first? (No pun intended lol.) Wonder what mainstream scientists reading this are chuckl…sorry, thinking.
OK, I had to peek. (So you won’t.)
“Again, the answer is simple: as with other sasquatch characteristics, the lack of a baculum is very strong evidence that Bigfoot isn’t an ape. ”
Wow. Did this come from the examination of the Georgia Bigfoot? Or is there something else we aren’t being told?
Just produce the body that led to the above conclusion and we’re done.
Otherwise: STOP BEING SILLY!
Wasn’t there some video awhile back that claimed to have a bigfoot with a erection nosing around a porn chicks camper on tv.
I’d also say that we are maybe getting ahead of ourselves here with talk of possible penis bones in Sasquatch. There seem more pressing things we could be trying to ascertain, such as their possible behaviors, feeding habits, movements, and other basic knowledge that we are lacking at this point. That is if they even exist, which more information along these lines could actually help us to ascertain.
Things like penis bones may be something that is best discussed when we actually have an animal that we can study. I just tend to think there are more useful and immediately relevant avenues of inquiry we can spend our time on at this stage of the documentation of possible Sasquatch. The question of whether or not Sasquatch have a baculum is in my opinion down on the list of priorities of issues we have to be trying to figure out about Sasquatch, and just doesn’t seem very important to me at this point.
Even so, as someone who enjoys speculative biology I find the whole discussion to be fascinating nevertheless. It is interesting to think about and is a good intellectual exercise at the very least.
Korollocke: I think you’re talking about the Redwoods video, sometimes called the “Playmate Video” because the hottie in question was one of them. Porn chick! how dare you! she might say. (Same diff? Guess that’s not for this forum.)
It was apparently a bigfoot caught roadside by a van in motion with a film crew inside (having filmed, oh I don’t know, guess), who allegedly suddenly found an unexpected use for their cameras.
This was touted as a keystone piece of evidence by Meldrum himself, I thought. Oddly enough, no mention of it is made in his book, which if he ever thought the preceding I would find odd. Personally? Despite the alleged substantiation of the fact that these guys have teeny genitalia (and that may be the clearest feature of the video), it’s about as blobby to me as any blobsquatch I have seen. I sure don’t lean on it.
Loren, if I got anything wrong I’m sure you’ll step in.
Is such a conversation premature ejaculation, a real boner, or just prompting satisfaction?
I think the “debate” is interesting because it relates to the larger issue: are sasquatch human or ape? Dr. Meldrum seems to defuse Ms. Short’s assumption that if sasquatch did not possess such an intimate structure, it would necessarily be human.
Mystery_Man: Right as usual. There are better areas of study to discuss than whether Ole Hairy has a bone in his penis or not.
Red_Pill_Junkie:
You made my day, man. You really did. You rock. 🙂
DWA: Also agree. First get a body. THEN we’ll talk.
To say that the presense of a baculum is what makes humans different from apes in beyond absurd.
There is a consensus–based on genetic as well as anatomical evidence–that the “apes” (i.e. gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimps) are not evolutionarily closer to each other than humans (forming a legitimate clade). In fact, chimps are more related to humans than they are to gorillas, which are in turn more related to humans than they are to orangutans. I doubt these taxonomic relationships will change anytime soon.
As such, a bone in the penis cannot not be, by definition, a trait that seperates man from ape, since man is himself an “ape”. This also makes the “near-human v. near-ape” debate silly. Either way you look at it, if sasquatch is real, it’s an ape.
More importantly, I fear we have a no-win situation here.
Who’s gonna hold him down?
Who’s gonna check?
And, lastly, who’s gonna take the pictures?
I will be waiting bemusedly for your report!
I can’t believe I’m getting dragged into a discussion on Sasquatch penises, but I also had some other observations concerning this subject. This is not really concerning penis bones, but more the alleged size.
I have seen several sightings reports that have mentioned Sasquatch having huge junk, and whether or not this is an embellishment or not, there are some things worth considering on this point.
The thing is, great apes actually have relatively small penises compared to humans. In fact, humans have proportionately the largest penises among all primates. Great apes are not very well endowed at all, comparitively speaking. No, “Hung like a gorilla,” is not a compliment. 😉
I’m not going to get into any discussions about why this is, as it doesn’t seem to be really fully understood to begin with, but it does seem to be relevant to the details of reports of large penises in Sasquatch. If they are reported with such outsized members, then that suggests to me that Sasquatch may possibly be closer to humans than to the less well endowed great apes. In this case, perhaps penis size is a clue as to the potential taxonomy of the Sasquatch. This is something I find interesting to consider here.
Just an observation.
DWA- You may be able to lend your considerable knowledge of sightings reports to shed light on my point above. What is the typical description of Bigfoot junk? I have read reports of large penises in Sasquatch, so that is what I am considering here, but is that the norm in reports? Of course there would be individual variation, but what would you say is the typical description? Is it really even mentioned often at all?
I read this in readers’ comments at the Smithsonian magazine site:
“At the age of 21 I met an native NW American Indian girl whom was I was highly endearted to who one day told me in what was almost a frightened whisper about some legend named “Big foot”.In NYC where I grew up I had never heard about “Big Foot”so I figured she was talking about some native folkloric being like JC so the whole subject just blew by me without a second thought.To make a long story short,about a year after her BF revelation to me,I came in direct contact with bigfoot and all I can say is that I was frozen with awe,daring not to even breath it seemed,but in this frozen moment there was a deep eye to eye comunication;in his eyes there was a look of supreme intelligence but most impressive was the look of scorn combined with a look of power I have never witnessed in any being.I’m 67 now and inretrospect I can realize why my young native friend seemed frighten.Some of these paleo renderings remind me of “BF” except for the eyes which are not nearly enough primitive,and threatening.Three things the eyes should be,primal,threatening,and perhaps intelligent depending on time of evolution.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Closer-Look-at-Evolutionary-Faces.html?c=y&page=6#ixzz0hPEyEJR1
The only penis I worried about was my own when my friend and I saw what we saw, we peed our pants. But then again, we were both 14, it was 30 years ago and the “creature” which was eating a maggoty deer carcass stood up screamed in a manner I will never forget, and we both ran away, after peeing our pants in terror.
I didn’t notice much else of the things anatomy, sorry.
BIGFOOT PENIS! Sorry, just had to stick that in there. 😉 I was acutely unaware of just how many mammals had bones in their penises. That’s not really one of the parts that I keep up with, it just goes in the pile with the other parts I don’t eat. It just never really occurred to me to open one up. That’s what I love about Cryptomundo! I learn something new every time I visit.
BoyintheMachine says, “I have a raccoon penis bone. They are supposed to be good luck.”
Apparently not for the raccoon!
m_m: I have never read a report mentioning junk that mentions big junk. They all take pains to mention small junk.
This is one thing that makes me think reports may be authentic. We all know that the ape stereotype is Very Large Junk – which as noted above is not borne out, with any known ape much less a speculated one. We all also know that one almost never sees the genitalia of known North American species at any distance (because they’re all quadrupeds and that tends to cover one’s junk). Genitalia in sasquatch are rarely mentioned. When they are the animal is always a male (not at all surprising for obvious – literally – reasons). And they’re always small.
So, if one goes along with the skeptics on their insistence that folklore is sometimes being reported as reality, one would also have to go along with things that are reported that are contrary to folklore possibiy representing reality. particularly when the reports square with the known reality of the non-human apes. (Which is known to almost no one who doesn’t study them – or see them.) It’s only logical.
And folks reporting big junk in sasquatch may just be reports we can discount. Because they are just going along with the erroneous yet almost pervasive folklore that “hung like a gorilla” is a compliment. 😉