Museum of phallological wonders

From gigantic whale penises to speck-sized field mouse testicles and lampshades made from bull scrotums, Iceland's small Phallological Museum has it all - and recently put its first human member on display.

"This is the biggest one," founder and curator Sigurdur Hjartarson told AFP, patting an enormous plastic canister. Inside was a liquid-immersed greyish-white mass as wide as a small tree trunk and as tall as a man.

Weighing 70 kilos and measuring around 170 centimetres, the Sperm Whale specimen "is just the front tip," he explained.

"The full penis could in fact be five metres and weigh something like 350 to 450 kilos - but of course, the animal it came from weighed around 50 tonnes," said the 69-year-old retired headmaster, chuckling beneath his woolly, grey beard.

A total 276 specimens from all of Iceland's 46 mammals, along with a few foreign contributions, are on show at what may be the world's only penis museum.

The room is filled with test tubes and glass containers in all shapes and sizes, holding formaldehyde-immersed offerings from whales, dolphins, walruses, redfish, goats, polar bears and rats, just to mention a few.

Fifteen silver-coloured casts of different-sized human penises also stand in a glass case.

First Published: Jul 26, 2011 00:30 IST