2010 Umstead Marathon Mascot Theory

One of the fun and unique things about the Umstead Marathon is that every year they have a "mascot" for that years race. It is usually some animal that is found in Umstead park.
The mascot adorns the website, the shirts, and the finishers pint glasses for that year's race. Also the top 15 male and female finishers receive a hand made wooden plaque in the shape of that animal.

so far we have had:

• 2004 - Horse fly
• 2005- Flying squirrel
  
• 2006- Turtle
• 2007- Fish
• 2008- Turkey vulture
• 2009- Frog
• 2010- ????

The cool part is that the mascot is kept a secret until the day before the marathon in package pickup.

So every year we try to guess what the animal will be. Every year I guess a deer, and every year I am wrong. Of course it should be a deer, because when you';re running out in Umstead what animal do you usually notice the most? That's right, deer!

I got an inside scoop from Dr. Ken that once again it is not a deer.

So my new theory is this:

We have had 1 invertebrate, and 1 each of the well known classes of vertebrate :

• Fish
• Bird
• Mammal
• Reptile
• Amphibian

I am assuming that there are no sharks or rays in Umstead. So what about the infraclass (weird cousin) of mammals that no one talks about: Marsupials!

That's right. My guess is an opossum! (pictured below: opossum at the Wake County Animal Shelter, taken by Shannon). In a few hours we will head to packet pickup, and see if my theory is correct. Though, I think a more appropriate mascot would be a pile of horse manure.