With the bill of a duck, the tail of a beaver, the feet of an otter and the venom of a rattlesnake, the platypus is the animal kingdom’s only aquatic egg-laying mammal. The platypus is native to eastern Australia, though there is one in Oregon.
Historically, a wooden platypus, carved out of maple wood in 1959 by then-University art student Warren Spady, was exchanged between the University and Oregon State University after their annual Civil War football game. Saturday afternoon, the OSU Beavers will be at Autzen Stadium for the 111th annual game, following which the platypus will be given to its rightful owner, just as long as nobody swipes it.
In the early 1960s, the platypus was stolen from a trophy case in Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum, allegedly part of a fraternity prank, before inexplicably falling into the hands of the University’s water polo team, according to the sculpture’s brass plaque.
“I was a teacher at Churchill High School,” explained Spady in a phone interview from Redmond, Ore. “In 1983, I received sabbatical to go to the University of Oregon and I was going to be teaching African studies.”
While on campus more than 20 years later, Spady happened to spot the platypus in the glass showcase at Leighton Pool. He never figured out how it got there, though given the water polo championship results carved into the plaque, he has his suspicions.
“Remember, that’s a club sport so the athletic directors didn’t know anything about it,” Spady said, jokingly indicting the water polo coach of 1964. “If it looks like a duck and waddles like a duck, it must be a duck. I wouldn’t want to cast aspersion on him or her, but something doesn’t smell right in Denmark.”
Jen Casey, deputy director for alumni communications at the University’s Alumni Association, has a less scandalous theory.
“I think what happened, probably back 21 years ago, is that the tradition never carried out and it got stuck in storage,” she said.
The platypus soon disappeared again. It recently resurfaced when Dan Williams, the former University vice president who serves as a consultant for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, came across it in storage in McArthur Court. Earlier this year, Williams delivered the trophy to the alumni office in Agate Hall.
“The Flight – the student alumni association – they represent tradition and spirit at the U of O,” Casey said. “They thought this was the perfect representative of what they stand for.”
Tony Kaminski, a University junior majoring in political science, said he’s excited to see the platypus with his own two eyes.
“It’s a perfect joint mascot for the sixth-longest rivalry game in the country,” he said. “We don’t have a trophy so it’s good we have it.”
Kaminski remains confident that he’ll be able to get a good look at the platypus, which he doesn’t expect to end up in Corvallis again.
“Of course it’ll stay here,” he said. “We’re going to win. Maybe it’ll give us a little good luck.”
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