Fans of porcine and amphibian actors can breathe a sigh of relief after it was revealed that the Muppets' Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog will, after all, be attending the Oscars on Sunday.

Doubts over the couple's participation in the ceremony at the Kodak Theatre in LA were allayed after organisers said they would be invited to present a prize. It will be the fifth time the Muppets, whose new film hit UK cinemas earlier this month, have appeared at the Oscars.

Miss Piggy had earlier suggested she would not attend, despite the Muppets being nominated for best song, given what she described as organisers' ongoing prejudice against animal actors. Staggeringly, all 20 performers nominated in this year's Oscar acting categories are human.

"It's wonderful to be nominated in the best song category, even if it wasn't a song I sang," she told reporters. "As for going to the Oscars, it's hard to feel right about going to an event like that where you're not really welcome. For some reason, the Academy has refused to recognise pigs as actors."

Their battered pride apparently soothed, Miss Piggy and Kermit will line up alongside fellow presenters Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, Bradley Cooper, Cameron Diaz, Emma Stone, Tina Fey and the cast of Bridesmaids on Sunday. Hosting duties will be taken on by Billy Crystal for the ninth time.