Not content with Knut the polar bear, Paul the octopus and David Hasselhoff, Germans now have a brand new fascination.
Her name is Heidi, and she’s a cross-eyed opossum hailing all the way from North Carolina. She’s new to the Leipzig Zoo and is already making splashes in the German media, even though she won’t be visible to the public until July. She first entered the spotlight when the German tabloid Bild visited the zoo to take pictures of animals to be housed in a new facility in the zoo. Now, she’s all over newspapers and TV stations, and has even inspired a hit song and a line of stuffed animals.
(See the top 10 animal stories of 2010.)
So why is Heidi cross-eyed? Nobody knows for sure, but experts say it may be because of fat deposits behind her eyes, brought on from a poor diet in her pre-zoo days. But since her state doesn’t cause her pain or affect her life, Heidi’s bad diet may have turned into her meal ticket. (via Spiegel Online)