Pet turtles replace pandas to predict the World Cup scores. [Photo/Sina Weibo]

Unlikely forecasters predict World Cup results

BEIJING - Enthusiasm to line up animals to predict the World Cup scores was undiminished in China despite the recent halt of the attempt on a team of panda cubs.

Baby pandas were supposed to be the China's answer to deceased soccer soothsayer Paul the Octopus, who won worldwide fame by correctly predicting the results of several games at the 2010 World Cup, but Chinese authorities stopped the move, saying "human overexposure would have harmed the pandas", according to CCTVNEWS.

Chinese fans soon found a replacement - pet turtles.

Pictures were posted online Sunday showing soccer fans made their turtles pick leaves from a choice of team names written on scraps of paper.

Unlike Paul the Octopus, unfortunately, these turtles hardly gave correct predictions as they picked England, Japan and Spain as the winners.

Paul the Octopus, who used his tentacles to choose mussels or oysters from boxes bearing the flags of participating nations, died in October 2010, shortly after that year's World Cup in South Africa.

However, his worldwide fame lives on. A menagerie of animals tasked with predicting World Cup scores joined the 2014 soccer extravaganza, including Swiss guinea pig named Madame Shiva who successfully predicted Switzerland's victory over Ecuador on Sunday.

The World Cup fever is sweeping over the populous China whose national team failed to qualify for the Brazil trip.