Nov. 24--Olympic mascots tend to be goofy, garish and quizzically odd.
So no one should be surprised by the multicolored talismans unveiled by the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
The yet-to-be-named figures that will represent the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games drew their inspiration from disparate sources that included video games and Brazil's fauna and flora, officials said.
One of the mascots can best be described as bright yellow and feline. The other looks like a blue tree with hands.
"The Rio 2016 mascots represent the diversity of our culture, of our people," said Beth Lula, an organizing committee executive. "They represent our joy, our way of being."
The public will get the chance to choose their names through an online poll that opened this week.
