Also? Watching animal documentaries makes me want to ask billytea all sorts of questions. Such as, the fossa: WTF?

Steph, was it the first time that it had been in contact with something hot?

No, I had coffee this morning. It's freaky.

Also? Watching animal documentaries makes me want to ask billytea all sorts of questions. Such as, the fossa: WTF?

Welcome to the island life. Islands are great places for weird things to evolve (or for pre-evolved weird things to survive). Madagascar is particularly good for it, as it's been isolated for almost 90 million years. (Incidentally, it originally broke off from India, not Africa.)

The fossa feature I most like (not its strangest, but certainly useful) is that they have flexible ankles that let it swivel its hind feet and climb down trees head first.

In summary, the fossa: not a camel.

I adore Lester. He is the man. My absolute favourite. However, there seems to be an issue with showing full length shots of him, and I feel deprived.

Madagascar! Fossa also have extremely long, spiny penises. Females in heat hang out in a tree and pick their mates from the gathered horde of wooing admirers. "Next! You, with the orange belly, up here!" Mating can take three hours, and the male may stay to cuddle for an hour or so after. Those are my Favorite Fossa Features (FFFs).

What? I thought they made up the fossa for Madagascar the movie, and I looked them up.

Madagascar! Fossa also have extremely long, spiny penises. Females in heat hang out in a tree and pick their mates from the gathered horde of wooing admirers. "Next! You, with the orange belly, up here!" Mating can take three hours, and the male may stay to cuddle for an hour or so after. Those are my Favorite Fossa Features (FFFs).

A couple of other interesting points: the males do have spiny (and unusually long) penises (with a penis bone); and the females have spiny clitorises (with a clitoris bone). More precisely, juvenile females have these characteristics. They recede with adulthood (even the clitoris bone shrinks). Oh, and that orange belly is the result of glandular secretions when a male is in rut; and juvenile females copy that too.

Are fossas the only animals with a clitoris bone?

From Wikipedia:

Mammals having a penile bone (in males) and a clitoral bone (in females) include various eutherians:

• Order Primates, although not in humans.
• Order Rodentia (rodents), though not in the related order Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares etc.).
• Order Insectivora (insectivores, including moles, shrews, and hedgehogs).
• Order Carnivora (including members of many well-known Families, such as Ursids (bears),[3] Felids (cats), Canids (dogs), Pinnipeds (Walruses, Seals, Sea Lions), Procyonids (Raccoons etc.), Mustelids (Otters, weasels, skunks and others)).
• Order Chiroptera (bats).

It is absent in humans, equids, elephants, monotremes, marsupials, lagomorphs, hyenas, and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), among others.

Such a wide distribution among placental mammals suggests that the bone evolved early in the history of these mammals, and was subsequently lost in certain groups.

Among the primates the marmoset, weighing around 500g, has a baculum measuring around 2mm, while the tiny 63g Galago has one around 13mm long. The Great Apes, despite their size, tend to have very small penis bones, and humans are the only ones to have lost them altogether.

Are fossas the only animals with a clitoris bone?

They are not, though it's a lot rarer than a penis bone. I believe it's been found in some squirrels, for instance.

Some of the animal folk who have lost it are sufficiently well-endowed, one would think they could use it. Why evolve it, only to discard it?

Also, is the plural of baculum "bacula"? I need to start a collection. "These are my bacula: cat, walrus, and scott."