Gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic, collectively known as Sphengic, are the Sydney Aquarium’s coolest couple.
At first, so Sphengic wouldn’t feel left out, aquarium staff gave the pair a fake egg to incubate, but the two were so diligent at caring for it — taking turns sitting on it and keeping other penguins from stealing their pebbles — that they received a real egg to foster from another bird who’d laid two.
Sea Life Sydney Aquarium
“They immediately knew exactly what it was and started incubating it, and we’re really, really happy,” Tish Hannan, the aquarium’s penguin department supervisor, toldAustralia’s ABC broadcaster. “We’re not going to need to step in just because they’re males … We might step in if it turns out that they’re not good parents because of who they are as individuals, but for all the signs we’re seeing at the moment they’re going to be amazing.”
The romance is likely to continue, according to Hannan. “If they have a successful breeding season and raise a chick, next year they’re very likely to get back together again because they know that worked for them,” she said.
There have been several famous same-sex male penguin couples over the years,NPR reports. Silo and Roy, chinstrap penguins, were togetherfor six yearsat the Central Park Zoo in New York City, and Harry and Pepper, Magellanics,lived togetherfor the same amount of time in San Francisco.
More recently,a same-sex penguin couple “kidnapped” a chick from another pair of birdswithin their home at Denmark’s Odense zoo at the end of September.
“The parents disappeared, and the kid was simply kidnapped,” the zookeeper told the outlet. “I think the female had been out to get her bath, and then it had been the male’s turn to care for the kid. He may have then left, and then the [gay] couple had thought, ‘It’s pity, we’ll take it.’ ”
source: people.com
