CLEARWATER, Fla. — Nicholas the Dolphin has picked the Cincinnati Bengals to beat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI.
The rescued Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, who is a permanent resident at Clearwater Marine, is more accurate than you might realize. He's currently boasting a 63 percent success rate with correctly predicting the winners of sports championships.
Although, we should note: We were happy he was wrong last year when he incorrectly selected the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.
You can view his full list of picks here. The tradition began in 2017.
This time around, Nick had a canine companion to keep him company while he made his decision. That special rescue pup was Billie, who is on Team Ruff in the upcoming Puppy Bowl XVIII.
"Billie is a rescue, like Nicholas, and is participating in the Puppy Bowl to raise awareness for adopting pets from shelters and rescue facilities," CMA explained in a press release.
So, how does Nick pick winners?
This year, he was shown two signs at one of his large underwater viewing windows. One had a logo for the Bengals, and the other had a Rams logo. When asked to choose one, he swam over and used his rostrum to indicate the Bengals sign.
For those unfamiliar with Nick's story, he was found as an orphaned calf on Christmas Eve in 2002. Because of that, he's named after Saint Nicholas. Nick had severe sunburns and lacked critical survival skills because baby dolphins typically spend years learning from their mothers. As a result, he was deemed non-releasable, and CMA was selected as his permanent home.
Though the facility technically has the word 'aquarium' in its name, it is perhaps best described as a working marine animal hospital with a mission of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing animals whenever possible.