This year Social Studies announces our new mascot: the platypus . In the process of designing our website, it struck us that although Social Studies has a its own culture and tradition, we have lacked an insignia, a coat or arms, seal or a totem. Sophomores in Social Studies read Emile Durkheim describe how groups regenerate their own energies and feelings of collective effervescence through collective representations like totems. But we ourselves have lacked such a symbolic source of solidarity and moral authority. "Why a platypus?" you might ask. As Durkheim tells us, the content and particularities of our collective representations are unimportant. Similarly, the colors red, white and blue are not inherently American but instead come to take on a special importance by virtue of representing the collectivity. There are however, a number of reasons why the platypus nonetheless makes a fine choice. First of all, Durkheim's study of elementary religion examined tribes in Australia, where the platypus is native and would have been a totemic animal. Secondly, for a concentration that is famous both for its close study of long-deceased thinkers and its contemporary interdisciplinary studies, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is appropriate as a timeless member of the evolutionary chain. Often called "a living fossil," an ancestral platypus is known to have walked among the dinosaurs 110 million years ago. Thirdly, for an interdisciplinary major it is apt to be represented by a creature whose physiognomy is an eclectic mix of seeming unlike, but well-integrated, features. Early European settlers first thought that the pelt of the platypus was a hoax because of the mixture of a horny beak resembling the bill of a duck, a beaver's tail, and webbed feet. The platypus, about two-feet long with two layers of water-tight dark brown hair, lays eggs like a bird but which stick to the fur on the mother's belly. The male platypus are equipped with spurs on the back of their hind feet that deliver a poisonous venom with a swift kick. Platypuses live on the banks of bodies of water, burrowing 50 foot long tunnels as a den. The plastic-looking bill is a stream-lined nose and mouth for sniffing and snuffling up pond-bottom delicacies like shrimp and worms. For more about these remarkable creatures, see: http://computers-notebooks-laptops-lcd-projectors-rentals.com/platwhat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus
http://www.ozramp.net.au/~senani/platypus.htm
http://www.nature.com/nsu/980813/980813-5.html
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