Local News in Brief : Irvine : Peter the Anteater Statue Installed at UCI

UC Irvine, home of the Anteaters, now has a statue of its official mascot.

The new 430-pound bronze statue of an anteater is a $50,000 gift to the university from the Class of 1987. It is in front of the new Bren Events Center on campus.

Officially named Peter the Anteater, the 8 1/2-foot-long statue was unveiled Jan. 14, before the UCI-Utah State basketball game.

The statue was created by New Mexico artist Billy Fitzgerald, who also designed UCLA’s famous Bruin Bear mascot. The statue rests on a six-ton base of travertine marble facing the Bren Events Center.

UCI adopted the anteater as its mascot in 1965, largely through the efforts of student Schuyler Bassett III, who engineered a campaign for the unusual animal. The rallying cry of “Zot!”--used by the UCI student body--was inspired by the anteater drawings and script in the Johnny Hart comic strip “B.C.”

UCI is believed to be the only school in the United States to have an anteater as its mascot, university officials said.