We’ve all had moments of sympathy pain. That little twinge when we see or hear about a fracture, burn, kick in the groin, or other familiar trauma that hits a little too close to home. And this phenomenon crosses species boundaries. I know because I just read a paleontology paper with an injury that made me clench my jaw and suck the air through my teeth.

The study, written by Adam Hartstone-Rose and colleagues, is titled “The Bacula of Rancho La Brea.” It’s all about Ice Age penis bones. While we lack the genital bones of our ancestors – the baculum in males and baubellum in females — they’re pretty common in other groups of mammals, and paleontologists working at Los