Two weeks ago, during our second week of The Science of Skeletons, I covered the osteological estimation of sex and bioarchaeological approaches to reconstructing gender in the past. Unsurprisingly, that was the week I started to see ossa coxae everywhere I looked.

First, while walking the canine domesticate I was dog-sitting, I noticed these seed pods (I think they may be maple, but I would like a botanist to confirm as I rarely deal with recently living things). To my eye, they looked like narrow and elongated chimpanzee innominates:

The resemblance even held when they were “articulated”; however, the articulated pelvis that they form is so wide that a graduate colleague of mine remarked on its resemblance to earlier hominin pelves (like the Gona pelvis, the Homo erectus specimen shown below):

Then, I found a giant innominate in a patch in the sidewalk pavement. Some of the features are a little distorted, but overall the resemblance is pretty clear:

I’ve clearly got bones on the brain, as is also evidenced by the fact that this is just the first of a series of upcoming Osteology Everywhere posts, so if you’re waiting with bated breath for the next installment….well, I’ll let Ray Arnold say it for me.

P.S. I also just discovered that the “Remove Background” tool exists in the figure editing panel in PowerPoint. This is a BIG DEAL. Look forward to lots more examples of floating bones in the near future.

UPDATE: My pedantic and bony pelvis-obsessed colleague Caroline VanSickle informs me that the correct latin plural for os coxae is ossa coxae, a distinction I never fail to forget (I always remember that the plural is atypical, but I also always forget its exact nature. This is why I prefer the term innominates). Also, the helicopter seed pods are maple. Good job everyone!

Image Credits: Original figure of innominate from Gray’s, here. Original chimpanzee ilium (P. troglodytes) found here. Gona pelvis found here.