A cross-eyed opossum called Heidi, who has filled the void left by psychic¹ Paul the Octopus², has predicted that Natalie Portman will walk away with this year's Best Actress Oscar.

斗鸡眼负鼠海蒂近日预测，娜塔莉·波特曼将摘走本届奥斯卡影后的桂冠。海蒂被认为是神算章鱼保罗的继任者。

Oscars 2011: Heidi the cross-eyed opossum backs Natalie Portman.
Heidi appeared via videolink from her zoo in Leipzig, Germany, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", the US television show, to "select" her favoured candidate.

A cross-eyed picture of each actress in the category – Portman, Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Williams – was taped to an Oscar statuette（小雕像） . Whichever statue Heidi touched with her paw first signified the winner.

She took a long time deliberating（故意的，深思熟虑的） over Kidman, nominated for her role in Rabbit Hole, and Lawrence, who stars in Winter's Bone, before eventually choosing Portman, widely considered the favourite for this weekend's award ceremony.

Heidi is thought to be two and a half years old, and was abandoned outside an animal shelter in North Carolina in the United States, together with her sister Naira, and has been at Leipzig Zoo since May.

Her popularity is reminiscent（怀旧的） of Paul the Octopus（章鱼） , who achieved global fame for correctly "predicting" the outcome of matches in last year's football World Cup. Paul died from natural causes in October.

Paul is to be honoured with a six foot statue on top of a football, however, in the middle of which will be a see-through window with the golden urn³（骨灰瓮） containing Paul's ashes.