Re: Dinosaur "baculae"

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

> 
>> I should be extremely surprised to learn that any dinosaur had a baculum, as
>> this is a feature of the mammalian penis which (by virtue of its being
>> divorced from the digestive system except in Monotremata which I think lack
>> baculae) is not exactly homologous to the intromittent organ of any
>> non-mammalian vertebrate.
>
>     If it  made things  more convenient, why  couldn't  dinosaurus  
>have  developed  a  baculae  (or something similar) analogously?   They  
>did  a lot of  things  structurally  not  found in contemporaray reptiles.  
>
Well, if so it wouldn't be a baculum (plural bacula, as George Olshevsky has
reminded me, not baculae), any more than the hemipenes of lizards are a
penis.  Picky, but there it is.  And, as we humans demonstrate quite
effectively  (or try to, with varying degrees of success) you don't really
need one.
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
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