re: #104 zephirus

They adopted? I thought all they had in the nest was a rock pretending to be a baby.

The pair I’m thinking of hatched out a chick from an abandoned egg, and raised it together. There is a children’s book about them: “And Tango Makes Three”. You can guess how popular this book is in certain circles.

IIRC, this breed of penguin has non-gendered parenting roles, both parents take turns sitting on the eggs and staying with the chicks. The zoo people realized the egg had a better chance of hatching out with real parental penguin butts keeping it warm, so they decided to see if the male-male pair would take it. Apparently, once it was in the nest, the old penguin instinct just kicked in.