‘Inseparable’ Sphen and Magic show ‘great excitement caring for their egg’ and are natural parents, aquarium says

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Two male penguins have “proposed” to each other in a Sydney aquarium, and are now the proud foster parents of an egg.

Sphen and Magic, two gentoo penguins, have built a bigger nest than any other couple, take turns incubating, and have been praised by staff as model parents.

The two became “inseparable” earlier this year, and staff noticed that as they approached breeding season, the couple began collecting pebbles to build a nest.

They were given a dummy egg to look after and performed so well keepers gave them a real egg to foster.

“They were absolute naturals and displayed great excitement caring for their egg,” staff said.

“They immediately knew exactly what it was and started incubating it and we’re really, really happy,” Tish Hannan, the supervisor of the aquarium’s penguin department, told the ABC .

Sphen also gave Magic a “special stone”, which the aquarium said was “the equivalent of proposing” in the love language of penguins. Male gentoo penguins frequently present high-quality stones to their partners as love tokens.

Hannan said that because gentoo penguins split parental responsibilities equally between male and female, it made no difference to have a same-sex couple.

“We’re not going to need to step in just because they’re males,” she said.

Gentoo penguins also generally lay two eggs, and use one for back up, which meant that the donating couple “didn’t even notice” their second egg was missing.

Gentoo eggs take roughly 33 to 36 days to hatch, and parents take turns incubating and looking after the egg.

Sphen and Magic join a long line of same-sex penguin couples, including Germany’s Stan and Oli, Toronto zoo’s Pedro and Buddy, New York’s Roy and Silo, and Penelope and Missy, a two female penguins from Ireland.

However, Pedro and Buddy and Roy and Silo later broke up when one of the pair left to be with a female. Stan and Oli are currently still together and were moved to Hamburg to live with another same-sex penguin couple, Juan and Carlos.

Radio station HIT106.9 also reported that last week, a human couple, Aiden and Kayley, proposed to each other at the Sydney aquarium in front of the penguin enclosure.