Osteological analysis of baculum in representatives of canidae population from Lithuania

Abstract

The aim of the study is to measure and compare the baculum (os penis) of Canidae family species from Lithuania – wolf, red fox, and raccoon dog – and to evaluate their pathological abnormalities. Material and methods. The present study is based on the bone collection build and inventoried by the Kaunas Tadas Ivanauskas Museum of Zoology. In total, bacula of 13 adult wolves, 28 red foxes, and 13 raccoon dogs were analyzed. An osteometric analysis was performed by using A. Čanady‘s and L. Čomor‘s method [1]. The pathologies were evaluated visually with the naked eye, specified using literary data. Descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov‒Smirnov test, one–way ANOVA were applied for statistical evaluation of osteometric data. The incidence of pathologies in different species was determined by Fisher‘s exact test. Results and conclusions. Comparison of osteometric data showed significant differences of bacula parameters of investigated animals (p<0.001). The bacula of wolves were longer and wider than of red foxes and raccoon dogs. The osteometric analysis also showed that bacula of red foxes were by 9.08 mm (p<0.001) shorter and by 0.61 mm (p<0.05) narrower than of raccoon dogs. The obtained result requires further deeper analysis. The red fox and raccoon dog are comparable in size, yet the differences of baculum parameters, length in particular, are rather significant. Analysis of baculum pathologies showed that they are not frequent (11 %). The observed pathologies were of two kinds: shape pathologies and osteophytes. Yet the distribution of baculum pathologies between different species was statistically insignificant (p>0.05).