Sports

By, C.H. Lim

BERLIN: Sea Life Aquarium says that Paul the Octopus who gained worldwide fame with his perfect World Cup predictions has died. He was two and a half years old.

Paul picks Spain over the Netherlands for the World Cup Final on July 9, 2010.

Aquarium spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge in Oberhausen said Tuesday, that Paul seemed fine during the check on late Monday night but was found dead in his tank the next day morning.

She says that it was normal for an octopus of his type to die at that age and that he had died of natural causes.

Paul is a common octopus that believed to hatched during January 2008, and was living in a tank at a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, despite originally being from Weymouth in England. Paul became internationally famous for correctly predicting the winner of Germany's seven matches at the 2010 World Cup, as well as the final.

Paul predicted the winners of each of the seven 2010 FIFA World Cup matches that the German team played, against Australia, Serbia, Ghana, England, Argentina, Spain, and Uruguay.

His prediction that Argentina would lose prompted Argentine chef Nicolas Bedorrou to post an octopus recipe on Facebook, meanwhile Paul's keeper, Oliver Walenciak, responded by saying "There are always people who want to eat our octopus but he is not shy and we are here to protect him as well. He will survive."

On July 12, 2010, Paul was retired from making predictions.

Paul's owners stated "He won't give any more oracle predictions, either in football, or in politics, lifestyle or economy, he will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh."

As a reward for his accurate predictions, aquarium staff presented him with his very own replica World Cup trophy garnished with his favourite food, mussels.