Anorak

Anorak News | Ostracod Piece

Ostracod Piece

by | 5th, December 2003

‘LORD Nelson, as we all know, has a huge column erected in his honour in the centre of London.

What was that about little men and big cars?

Napoleon, by contrast, whose plans to invade England were scuppered once and for all by Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, had a tiny willy.

We know this because it was cut off on his death bed by the abbe who administered the last rites, pickled and put in a jar (which is now owned apparently by an American urologist).

We only mention this to annoy the French and by way of introduction to a picture in this morning’s Independent of what appears to be the world’s oldest penis.

And a pretty impressive member it is too, such that one would have to speculate that its owner, an ostracod, was of good British stock.

A fossil of the ostracod, a tiny creature that was a cross between a shrimp and a clam and lived some 425 million years ago, was found at a site in Herefordshire. In Britain.

And, says the Indy, it “sports a large penis which has been perfectly preserved in three dimensions”.

In fact, such is the size of the ostracod’s manhood that its Latin name Colymbosathon ecplecticos actually means “swimmer with a large penis”.

Or, as we now know it, Duncan Goodhew…’



Posted: 5th, December 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink