For baby pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng, social media star, Donald Trump will win the US presidential election. At least that’s what the animal predicted from its zoo in Thailand, when it was offered two different meals to decide between the two neck-and-neck opponents in the polls…
The four-month-old female hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her antics, inspiring merchandise and memes, and managing to quadruple ticket sales at her zoo in Khao Kheow, central Thailand.
Two meals consisting of carved fruits and each revealing an inscription were offered to Moo Deng, whose name means “bouncing pig” in Thai.
One featured the name of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, the second that of former Republican President Donald Trump, according to a video posted on X by the zoo.
The animal chose to taste the meal bearing the name of the 78-year-old Republican.
Moo Deng, whose species is endangered, has become particularly popular in the United States, to the point of being played by comedian Bowen Yang in a sketch on “Saturday Night Live”, a cult American television program broadcast by NBC.
The channel’s “Tonight Show” even broadcast at the end of September the results of a humorous poll on voting intentions for the presidential election, giving Moo Deng the winner with 93% of the votes against Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
According to the opinion polls considered the most serious, the Democrat and the Republican are in a mini handkerchief in each key state likely to swing the vote on Tuesday.
Exotic animals regularly play the game of predicting world events, sometimes with success.
During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the famous German cephalopod Paul the octopus predicted the winners of the matches by choosing between two boxes containing food. He had correctly guessed the results of all the German team’s matches, as well as Spain’s victory in the final, from his German aquarium.
