Two male penguins who want to be parents themselves tried to adopt a chick while its mother and father weren't looking in Denmark.

It is likely they believed that the parents were neglecting the chick because they had left it alone while they went swimming at Odense Zoo, reported Danish broadcaster DR.

'The parents disappeared, and the kid was simply kidnapped,' said Sandie Hedgegard Munck, a zookeeper at Odense.

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The male penguin couple quickly stepped in to care for the chick they thought was being neglected

The biological parents came looking for their baby and confronted the same-sex couple

Munck believes that the incident was down to the relaxed parenting approach on the part of the chick's biological father.

'I know that the female is very caring for the kid, and she is also very aggressive to us animal lovers if we get too close to the chick,' she said.

'I think the female had been out to get her bath, and then it had been the male's turn to care for the kid.

The mother penguin is heard crying as she tries to reach her baby, which is eventually handed back by the zoo staff

'He may have then left, and then the [gay] couple had thought, 'It's a pity, we'll take it.''

The biological parents came looking for the chick and confronted the gay couple, triggering a dispute which was caught on camera by zoo staff and posted on Facebook.

The mother penguin is heard crying as she tries to reach her baby, which is eventually given back by the zoo staff.

Sandie Hedgegard Munck, a zookeeper at Odense Zoo in Denmark, was impressed by the broody behaviour of the gay penguin couple

But the gay couple still got their wish as the zookeepers were so impressed by their parenting skills that they gave them an egg from a female penguin who couldn't look after it herself.

Previously two king penguins at Odense zoo managed to hatch an abandoned egg after the zookeepers allowed them to adopt it.

In 2004, gay penguin couple Roy and Silo were the subject of a New York Times feature on their relationship which began in 1998 at New York's Central Park Zoo.

The male penguins engaged in the same mating rituals as straight penguin couples, and, after zoo staff saw them trying to hatch a rock, they were given a baby named Tango.

The story was made into a children's book in 2005 titled 'And Tango Makes Three.'