Gay King Penguins with new baby
The Toronto Zoo may have separated "gay" penguins Buddy and Pedro, but the Odense Zoo in Denmark is taking a different approach and they have some amazing photos. They learned two of their male King penguins were a couple and wanted an egg so badly they tried to steal one from other pairs. Sadly, the gay penguins tried to incubate a dead herring, reports the Toronto Star. Luckily a female delivered an egg with a male and then dumped him for another male and produced another egg. She then abandoned the egg. As penguins mate for life this is extremely rare. But it gave the zookeepers an extra egg. They tested the gay couple's parenting skills with a ball and then gave them the abandoned egg.
The chick hatched about a month ago and now we are getting a good look at the happy couple with their chick.
This is the first for King Penguins, but not the first for penguins. Zookeepers in Madrid also gave two males an egg to care for earlier this year and a zoo in China gave a couple named Adam and Steve a newly-hatched chick to care for.
Toronto's Buddy and Pedro were separated by zookeepers last November because the African penguins have top-notch genes and are an endangered species, according to the zoo. In December Buddy found a female mate and breeding activities were observed.
