A mob of “psychic” meerkats are backing the Lionesses once more, predicting England’s women will bring football home on Sunday.

After three correct World Cup predictions and a perfect prediction record for the Euros 2022, the so-called “mystic” meerkats at Drusillas Zoo Park in Alfriston have had their say on the historic game.

The special method involves two buckets of worms – a delicacy for the meerkats - with each team's flag on.

The buckets are placed down before the meerkats are released and left to choose which bucket they would prefer to eat from. Whichever bucket is surrounded by the most meerkats is declared the predicted winner.

For their final prediction of the tournament the meerkats kept things exciting and it looked as though it could have gone either way at one point with little meerkat bottoms sticking out of both buckets for a while.

But, after some scrambling around, the mob settled in England’s bucket and Spain’s bucket was left deserted.

Although it might seem a strange activity for meerkats, it forms part of the zoo’s "daily enrichment programme" which makes sure all the animals enjoy a "diverse diet in imaginative and unusual ways".

Staff at the zoo say the activities encourage them to think and work for their food, like they would in the wild and it's now become a bit of a tradition at the zoo and the meerkats run over excitedly when they see the buckets.

Head keeper Gemma Romanis said: “Whether you are superstitious or not, the meerkats have a pretty impressive track record with their predictions so I’m choosing to believe in them.

“It’s now become a tradition here at the zoo and this year even our new baby, Reggie who is only a couple of months old, was in on the action too. We’re big football fans here and are so proud of our Lionesses, so it would be amazing for England to win as the meerkats have predicted.

“They actually weren’t as certain today and there was a moment where there were equal meerkats in both buckets, but they had a team huddle and seemed to all land on England as the winner after all.”