Euro 2012: Citta the elephant to sniff out winners

An elephant in Poland is set to sniff out winners in the Euro 2012 football championships, using her trunk where Germany's Paul the Octopus used his wily arms to prophesy for the 2010 World Cup.

Citta, a 33-year-old female elephant from a zoo in the southern Polish city of Krakow, will make her first tournament prophecy on June 6, two days before the kick-off of the 16-nation contest co-hosted this year by Poland and Ukraine.

"During her meet-and-greet with the media, she swallowed a football: it was leather not plastic and had no adverse effect on her digestive system," Krakow zoo director Teresa Grega told AFP on Thursday.

"Citta already successfully predicted the result of the Champions League and Chelsea's win against Bayern Munich," Grega added.

With fruit for her crystal ball, Citta will call the outcome of the June 8 Poland-Greece match at the Warsaw National Stadium by picking between three apples - two labelled with country names and the third in case of a tie.

The India-born elephant - who spent twenty-odd years in a German circus before moving to Austria, Spain and Krakow in 2006 - appears to really enjoy football, according to Grega.

In 2010, Paul the Octopus became the world's most famous mollusk when he foretold the results of every match played by Germany at the World Cup in South Africa, as well as Spain's victory against the Netherlands in the final.

Paul has since died, leaving it up to Citta to take up the animal-soothsayer mantel in Poland, while co-host Ukraine has chosen a pig in capital Kiev to predict the outcomes.

Getting in on the animal act too are a sausage dog called Sissi and Rossi an octopus, both from Germany, and Nicholas, an English-based llama.