All your life, you've been made to believe that the pelvic bones in whales and dolphins are just there due to evolution. Conventional thinking claims that these mammals have that pelvic bone because of their ancestors that walked on land a million years ago.  Also, that pelvic bone sticking out is said to disappear in a matter of time.

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However, researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) and the Natural History Museum (NHN) of Los Angeles County have proven that the speculations were wrong.

Their research has been published in the journal 'Evolution' on September 3, where they say that the pelvic bones found in whales and dolphins are actually for mating.

The researchers noted that the muscles of a cetacean's (whales and dolphins) penis is attached to the pelvic bones that control the movement.

From USC's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences assistant Professor Matthew Dean worked closely with Jum Dines who is the collections manager of mammalogy at NHM. The pair has worked on the research for almost four years in order to find what advantage do the pelvic bones have regarding the control of the mammals' penis.

They used a 3D laser scanner in order to study the shape and the size of the samples the have gotten. They have gathered all sorts of testis since it is relative to the body mass of the creatures. They used the marine mammal specimens at NHM and examined hundreds of pelvic bones.

The researchers explained that since their mating environment is competitive, male whales tend to develop larger testes so as to eliminate other competitors.

The duo then compared the sizes of the testes and the pelvic bones. They concluded that the bigger the testes, the bigger the pelvic bones. They concluded that  there is really an impact caused by the pelvic bone having to do with controlling the muscles of the penis.

Dines and Dean also compared the pelvic bones to the rib size of the creatures and noted that the overall skeleton size does not have to do anything with the size of the pelvic bones. 

TagsPelvic Bones, whales, Dolphins, Not Useless, Controls muscles in Penis, Helps in Mating