If it's not a penis, what is it?

[Electronic_Chaos]

clickyclick

The whale shark (like all sharks) lacks a penis, so the circled item in the photo above is not that, no matter what it looks like.

Ok, it is alarmingly phallic, but apparently it’s not a penis, so what the hell is it?

[Loopus]

From the linked page:

As to what the item hanging down is, the best guess from folks who study sharks has it that part of a female shark’s intestines extruded through her cloaca, probably because of the ropes cutting into her.

What’s wrong with that explanation?

[Desmostylus]

What’s wrong with:

As to what the item hanging down is, the best guess from folks who study sharks has it that part of a female shark’s intestines extruded through her cloaca, probably because of the ropes cutting into her.

[Electronic_Chaos]

::smack::
I have a tendancy to completely overloock whole paragraphs of something. So sorry, mods come by and close this thread.

[ubermensch]

i really wish snopes would finalize their pages before putting them up. when i first read it, snopes said that that thing was one of the two claspers of a male whale. i’ve noticed that snopes have changed a few of their explanations after they’ve been posted. maybe they should log what they’ve changed and when for each debunking

[green_bladder]

Wow, that’s revolting.

[Dunderman]

Two things wrong, one of which has been pointed out:

1. That’s not a whale, it’s a shark. Sharks don’t have penises.

2. The thing, whatever it is, is way too small to be the penis of a blue whale. A blue whale’s penis is approximately ten feet long.

So this urban legend is understating the truth… You don’t see that every day.