A same-sex penguin couple caused some dramatic scenes at a Danish zoo when they snatched a baby chick which appeared to have been abandoned by its parents.

The pair quickly stepped in when they saw the little penguin alone and seemingly neglected at the enclosure in Odense Zoo.

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According to zookeeper Sandie Hedegård Munck, the chick’s mother had gone to bathe and left the hatchling with its father. “He may have not gone to care for the baby, and the couple thought, ‘Well, we’ll take it’,” she explained.

Even more surprising was the parents’ reaction when they discovered their young one was missing - the male simply wandered around like he didn’t have a child while the female searched calmly, Munck told DR.

However, tense scenes unfolded and nature’s instinct kicked in when the couple found their baby nestled between the two males. Footage of the incident shows the mother crying as she tries to reunite with her baby.

Eventually, the zookeeper intervened and returned the baby to its parents. It wasn’t all bad news for the loving same-sex penguins, however, as the zoo used the opportunity to help out another female penguin by passing her unfertilized egg to them after she'd sat on it for over 60 days.

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Previously a pair of king penguins at the Odense zoo successfully incubated an abandoned egg after the zookeepers noticed their broody behavior and allowed them to adopt the baby penguin.



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