Many animals emulate Paul the Octopus

Ahead of yesterday’s Champions League final and with Euro 2012 just around the corner, animals of all shapes and sizes queued up to succeed Paul the Octopus, the famous clairvoyant Cephalopoda from the 2010 World Cup. Paul, an octopus who lived at an aquarium in the German city of Oberhausen, rose to fame during the last World Cup for correctly “predicting” the outcome of eight consecutive matches at the tournament. The tentacled soothsayer, who picked winners by selecting food from boxes decorated with teams’ national flags, passed away after the tournament, but there are now plenty of animals bidding to step into his (eight) shoes. Ahead of yesterday’s Champions League showdown in Munich between Bayern Munich and Chelsea, a local sausage dog named Sissi and an octopus called Rosi from nearby Rosenheim have both predicted that Bayern will prevail. Dachshund Sissi opted for a dish of food underneath a goal bearing the Bayern logo, while Rosi chose food from a box in Bayern red, apparently backing the Bavarians to beat Chelsea at Munich’s Allianz Arena. But reports from England say Nicholas, the llama from Sussex, believes the Blues will prevail, after he chose a blue ball in his pen over a red one. English tabloid the Daily Mirror reports that Nicholas’s prediction carries some weight as he correctly predicted Chelsea would beat Liverpool 2-1 in the FA Cup final earlier this month.