Baby hippo Moo Deng ‘predicts’ US election winner

The polls put the US election on a knife-edge, but as Americans go to vote, Thailand’s superstar baby hippo Moo Deng has predicted former president Donald Trump will regain the White House.

The chubby chomper took the internet by storm with her adorable antics at Khao Kheow Open Zoo, quickly becoming a staple of social media memes and inspiring a raft of merchandise.

Now Moo Deng, whose name means “bouncy pork”, has predicted a comeback victory for the Republican over Democrat Kamala Harris.

Offered two dishes of carved fruit, each emblazoned with one of the candidates’ names, the four-month-old pigmy hippo chose Trump, in video posted online by the zoo.

Moo Deng has proved a particular hit in the United States, where comedian Bowen Yang portrayed her in a “Saturday Night Live” comedy sketch.

She also beat both Trump and Harris in an unofficial presidential poll run by “The Tonight Show”, taking 93 percent of the vote.

While the soothsaying skills of hippos are largely untested, other animals have achieved global fame predicting the outcome of world events, most notably the legendary Paul the Octopus.

The clairvoyant cephalopod shot to global stardom by correctly predicting eight matches in the 2010 World Cup from his aquarium in Germany.