Rameses XVII, the blue-horned ram who led the UNC-Chapel Hill football team onto the field for the past five years, died Thursday of complications from a wound he suffered at the horns of his own son.

Rameses XVII was 8.

The son Pablo, 3, will take the name Rameses XVIII and succeed his slain father as Carolina mascot, keeper Rob Hogan said.

Rameses and Pablo shared a field at Hogan's farm outside Carrboro. On April 13, they butted heads, as rams are occasionally wont. This particular collision was so jarring that it snapped off one of the older ram's horns.

The injury was serious. Infection set in.

Hogan, whose family has kept all the Rameses since the UNC tradition began in 1924, treated the deposed patriarch with antibiotics and wound care.

"On Thursday I got up before daybreak and went out to check on him, and he was doing worse," Hogan said. "It was obvious he wasn't going to make it."

Hogan summoned a vet to put Rameses XVII down, but before the vet could arrive the elderly sheep breathed his last.

The mascot is dead.

Long live the mascot.