Meeting Abstract
The evolution, diversification, and maintenance of external genitalia are important aspects of natural selection and sexual selection in evolutionary biology. The coevolution between male and female genitalia, whether in concert or in conflict, naturally leads to integrative questions that unite many disciplines of biology. The os penis or baculum in males, and the os clitoris or baubellum in females, are ossified structures located in the genitalia of mammals. While the baculum has been the subject of 100 years of research the baubellum by contrast has received little attention, and there are no testable hypotheses for its evolution or diversification. Here we apply a novel morphometric approach to study the baubellum in three dimensions, and to test whether phenotypic variation has a genetic basis. The results of our analysis will add a novel aspect to studies of the heritable basis of mammalian reproduction.
