Googly-Eyed Possum Becomes Zoo Celebrity in Germany

Meet the most unlikely zoo celebrity yet: a cross-eyed pest who hasn't even been on public display.

Her name is Heidi, and this two-and-a-half-year-old opossum captured German hearts when she was photographed last year as part of a behind-the-scenes look at the Leipzig Zoo's newest arrivals.

Now she's a certified sensation -- with more than 120,000 Facebook fans, a pop song and even a stuffed toy in the works, despite the fact that she won't even meet her adoring public until her exhibition opens in July.

And if you think she's a big deal, wait until you meet her sister. The zoo says Naira, born at the same time, is every bit as starry-eyed as Heidi.

The zoo says it doesn't know why Heidi and her sister are so googly-eyed, but they do have some ideas.

Naturally, the first theory blames America.

"It could be the result of the way the animals were fed when they were raised by hand in the USA," the zoo says in a statement on its website, which admits that it's "difficult to judge this in retrospect."

The other theory is that the animals are overweight, and the fatty deposits are pressing against the eye sockets.

Heidi is so fat that when the zoo acquired her, she couldn't use her tail for the usual opossum activities, like grabbing on to things and dangling.

Heidi is now on a diet. The zoo says she's already lost some weight and can grip things with her tail again -- but since fatty deposits around the eyes are the last to go, it'll be a while before they know if it makes a difference in her peepers.

In any case, the zoo says that the condition doesn't seem to be hurting the animals -- and that opossums rely more on their noses anyway.

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Heidi and Naira, along with an unrelated male opossum named Teddy, will be part of the zoo's upcoming Gondwanaland tropical experience exhibition.

And if you want to see them, be quick -- the cross-eyed sisters will already be 3 years old when it opens, which is well past retirement age in the opossum world. The animals generally live to around 4 years old.

Stardom can be fleeting, even in the animal world. Just ask Paul the Psychic Octopus -- a celebrity in the summer, dead by autumn ... and already replaced.