Two adorable male penguins in Sydney have made international headlines as they’ve become Australia’s first gay penguin couple to become foster parents.
Gentoo penguins are famously monogamous both in the wild and in captivity. Photo by thibolt/Budget Travel
Magic and Sphen are two gentoo penguins at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium and staff noticed they formed an inseparable bond prior to this year’s mating season. As well as spending all their time together, they both began collecting ice pebbles and building a makeshift nest. When the real pebbles were put out for mating season, they collected those as well, bringing them back to each other and bowing, resulting in a nest that was bigger than any of the other couples in the aquarium.
Naturally, penguins mate when they’re ready to have a baby and aquarium staff decided to provide them with a dummy egg to practice their skills. Tish Hannan, the penguin department supervisor told ABC that the results were instantaneous. “They immediately knew exactly what it was and started incubating it and we’re really, really happy.”
In fact, they proved they could be such wonderful parents that the loved-up couple have been given their own real egg to hatch. Gentoo penguin couples often have a second egg – or ‘back-up chick’ – which frequently dies in the wild where resources can be scarce. Magic and Sphen were given one of these extra eggs to foster and staff say the original couple didn’t even notice it was gone.
Once the egg is produced, all the parental responsibilities are split 50/50 so Hannan explained that the gender of the parents made no difference. “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.”
Homosexual behaviour in penguins has been noted for more than a century, although it wasn’t publicised at the time. The first known same-sex penguin couple were Roy and Silo who successfully hatched and fostered a chick in 2004 at Central Park Zoo.
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