With much excitement in the air about Sunday’s Super Bowl, it’s always good to hear of animal-related news. Firstly animal lovers are looking forward to the popular Puppy Bowl, where a pile of cute puppies play their own brand of football. Now we have Fiona the Hippo, the popular star of Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, revealing her Super Bowl prediction.

Winner chosen by Fiona the Hippo

Sunday’s big game is set to see the Philadelphia Eagles facing off against the New England Patriots as winners. On Thursday, the latest Facebook Watch episode of the popular “The Fiona Show” showed a zookeeper placing two boxes in front of the young hippopotamus.

Both are clearly marked with the appropriate team’s logo. Zookeepers strategically placed a little lettuce on top of each box as an incentive for Fiona’s prediction as well as a trail of tasty leaves right up to the boxes.

Speaking for Cincinnati Zoo, Christina Gorsuch, the mammal curator, said right at the beginning that this was the first time Fiona had made a sports prediction. Gorsuch went on to say how interesting it would be to see which of the two boxes looks and smells more tempting to the young hippo. Obviously, Fiona isn’t really into the game and to her, it’s a matter of which box would be the better toy and had something the hippo would like to eat.

Winning prediction revealed by a piece of lettuce

Fiona’s choice turned out to be the Philadelphia Eagles, which the Huffington Post says is the perfect team for Fiona to choose, as she was an underdog herself after having been born prematurely.

Fiona, who celebrated her first birthday last week, was only 29 pounds at birth and was considered a miracle baby.

However, she has been thriving since then and has a huge following with animal lovers.

This isn’t the end of Fiona’s involvement with the Super Bowl, however, as residents of Cincinnati will be treated to seeing the baby hippo in a commercial on Sunday, which will air during the big game.

Any other Fiona fans can enjoy a sneak peek at episode 3 of “The Fiona Show” on Facebook Watch.

The video showing Fiona making her prediction has gone viral on Facebook, with almost 800,000 views at the time of writing. It has also attracted some fun comments. Facebook user Jamie Wilmath claims that Fiona the Hippo is offended, as there are many teams with animal names, but none called the Hippos. Wilmath joked that Fiona is starting a petition to get the Bengals to change their name to the Hippos.

Another Facebook user said they love Fiona, but didn’t care who wins, adding that she had stopped watching football after players began to “disrespect our flag.”

As for which team will actually be the winner, fans will just have to wait until super bowl sunday.
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