4 Things You Didn’t Know About These Super Bowl–Predicting Critters
Each year—for some unknown reason—we turn to the animal kingdom for the inside scoop on which team will pull out a Super Bowl victory.
Most of the time, the animal is choosing between two boxes of food—labeled with opposing team logos—and whichever one the clairvoyant critter picks is your best Super Bowl bet.
It’s a dumb pastime, but it gives us the opportunity to dole out some real facts about the animals brought into the NFL’s limelight. So instead of focusing on which football team is going to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy on Sunday, we’ll focus on what makes these animals special.
Teddy Bear the Porcupine
A veteran in the Super Bowl pick-’em game, Teddy Bear has correctly picked the past three Super Bowl winners by choosing which dispenser to get his corn out of first—not exactly the Nate Silver way. But what is impressive is Teddy’s life story. A rancher in West Texas found Teddy as a baby in 2003—abandoned in a barn with his birth cord still attached. Now he’s the animal ambassador at Dallas’ Zooniversity. North American porcupines spend most of their time in trees and can have more than 30,000 quills to protect themselves from mountain lions, bears, coyotes, and curious dogs.
Prognosticating Penguins
At Moody Gardens Aquarium in Galveston, Texas, a group of penguins ganged up to make their Super Bowl prediction, possibly showing some favoritism by picking the also-feathered Seahawks over the New England Patriots. They kept their cool making their picks, and that’s because they can keep their body heat regulated better than just about any other animal. Emperor penguins, for instance, can handle Antarctica’s bitter winters, where windchills can dip down to -76 degrees Fahrenheit. Individually, each penguin is equipped with plumage and thermal convection capabilities to combat the cold, but their communal strategy of huddling tightly together to keep warm is one of the clearest examples of social cooperation in nature.
Manatees’ Split Decision
Two manatees disagreed in their Super Bow predictions, with Hugh, a resident of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, choosing the Seahawks while his half-brother, Buffet, went with the Patriots. The duo have been picking winners since 2008, with Hugh holding a 5–2 record and Buffet besting him with 6–1. Those are impressive marks for animals that don’t know what a football is, but more impressive is their appetite: Manatees usually spend at least half of the day eating, munching up about 10 percent of their body weight each day. That’s around 100 pounds of sea grass daily.
Orangutan Is a Pats Fan
ESPN sports analysts turned to the Phoenix Zoo’s orangutans to get the results of Super Bowl XLIX before the game is played. The orange-haired primate picked the Patriots jersey and did its best to put it on—looking ready to try out for a position on the offensive line. But with their long arms, they might be better suited as receivers. Wild orangutans spend about 90 percent of their time up in trees in their tropical rainforest home.
Original article from TakePart
