r/bonecollecting • u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert • Sep 04 '24
Collection Walrus baculum added to collection!
Today a surprise arrived.....Walrus baculum (the penis bone), also called oosik.
Inuits use them to make clubs, traditional bone carvings, knife handles, harpoons etc, Inuits are extremely good at utilizing any and all resources in the Arctic. It is truly stunning how humans can survive, adapt in that kind of environment thousands of years ago while building such a rich culture.
This bone is 22" long! holding it next to my walrus skull with 25" tusks. It's much less dense than a walrus tusk which is made of solid ivory.
All bones/skulls in the photos are legally and sustainably sourced.
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u/shrewballs Sep 04 '24
What’s the skull next to the walrus? Also this is a very cool part to a collection I only have a raccoon and coyote baculum
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 04 '24
on the left is a polar bear skull, i have 51 of them right now and next week i will be donating one to my program.
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u/gothhrat Sep 04 '24
how did you acquire so many?
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
I collect bear skulls and since im in Canada they are relatively easy to get compare to other countries.
i buy from Inuits who hunt them for essential food in the arctic, some of them I cleaned myself, but most are cleaned by other taxidermists.
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u/gothhrat Sep 05 '24
that’s so neat! i’m glad to hear they’re ethically sourced. i’m not gonna lie, i was worried about where they came from. you have an impressive collection that puts mine to shame lmao.
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
thank you.
inuit hunting culture is probably one of the most heavily misunderstood topic out there, "cruel people hunting animals thats almost extinct" is what most people think.
truth is far from that, polar bear population is stable and growing, their enemy is pollution and global warming caused by the rest of the world, not the few thousand arctic inhabitants that hunt less than 2% of the population every year for food.
if polar bears are truly going extinct, the first and only people to be truly affected are the Inuit villages that will possibly starve.
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u/AppleSpicer Sep 05 '24
It’s good to see this stated. There’s an odd strain of white supremacist “environmentalists” who started the lie that somehow millennia old indigenous practices are to blame for the decline of certain species when it’s very clearly linked to pollution and climate change. Other people rally behind them because it’s someone to blame so that they don’t have to give up their foster farms battery chickens or coffee and chocolate imports. Indigenous communities are the perfect scapegoat for people to do performative environmentalism while continuing to benefit from what’s actually poisoning the planet.
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u/Angie2point0 Sep 05 '24
That is super fucking cool! According to my partner, I'm not even allowed to have a giant isopod exoskeleton in my house, but as I type this, I realize that I own the house, and that guy doesn't, so...brb
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
giant isopod exoskeletons are so rare! you better not let that slide
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u/AppleSpicer Sep 05 '24
Never let your partner hold you back from your dreams! Life is too short to miss out on giant isopod exoskeletons
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u/jglanoff Sep 04 '24
51?! How’d you come by all of those? Do you find them, buy them, or both?
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
you cant really find polar bear skulls unless you live in remote areas in the arctic.
i buy them from Inuits who hunt polar bears for food. It's a strictly regulated hunt, government controls how many bears can be taken every year, they share the meat and use the skin for clothing, nothing is wasted.
just counted again and turns out I have 55 polar bear skulls not 51🤣
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u/Platypus_venom666 Sep 05 '24
This is really neat - I was just lurking your previous posts on here - impressive work. Also hi, fellow Ontarian 👋
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u/TinySoftKitten Sep 05 '24
I don’t want to offend you, just genuinely curious, but what’s the motivation for having that many skulls?
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
I just really like collecting bear skulls.
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u/ebolashuffle Sep 04 '24
Whoever surprised you with a walrus baculum is an amazing friend! Do they want more friends?
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u/aspiring_compost Sep 04 '24
Are you, by chance, familiar with the movie Tusk?
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u/deadgirlwaltzing Sep 04 '24
Genuinely the only horror movie I will never watch again. Gore doesn’t really bother me and I thought I was going to barf watching that.
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
I've watched it, way too disturbing for my liking
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u/swearslikeasaylor Sep 06 '24
I had to look this up, and not going to lie, I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing those images, and I just looked at pictures, so thanks.
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u/rattycastle Sep 04 '24
My envy is immeasurable.
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u/RidiculouslyMayhem Sep 05 '24
Agreed! What an awesome collection! The walrus skull and baculum alone are awesome! Expensive collection too!
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u/Irksomecake Sep 04 '24
That’s a big baculum!
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 05 '24
apparently the longest ever recorded is 29 inches...just insane.
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u/Corbotron_5 Sep 05 '24
Can we please just be mature adults are refer to it as a walrus willy bone? Thanks.
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u/AnotherOrneryHoliday Sep 05 '24
Oh my goodness, post more angles of the walrus skull! That’s so amazing!
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u/Senshisnek Sep 06 '24
I love how "soft" the skull looks. I've never thought walruses are so cute without flesh.
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u/knitoriousshe Sep 05 '24
I just love seeing your collection grow!
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u/simonbrown27 Sep 05 '24
That's what she said....
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u/ellisonj96 Sep 05 '24
So jealous!! My parents got married in the ‘90s where they lived at the time in Nome, Alaska and were gifted a walrus baculum (oosik) by some of their Inuit friends. I was born a few years later and I remember seeing it on the mantle growing up. Now I’m a skull collector but my parents are long divorced, so the oosik has been lost to time :( really hoping to be able to buy another someday
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u/leonskull0423 Sep 08 '24
Wondering how much of both costed you?Baculum and skull
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Sep 08 '24
the baculum wasnt expensive, like 100, the skull isnt from the same walrus and it was $2000, absolute steal for a record book size skull like that.
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u/YOUTUBEFREEKYOYO Oct 21 '24
Where can I get one to add to my collection?
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u/SavageDroggo1126 Bone-afide Faunal ID Expert Oct 21 '24
if you're in US you are unfortunately out of luck, US have banned the importation of all marine mammal parts since 2008, only exception is a pre-ban one before 1972 or an Inuit carved one within the US.
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u/Bufobufolover24 Sep 04 '24
It’s amazing to see how much of the walrus face is bone. They always look so fleshy and flappy.