Celebrations galore as famous gay penguins Scampi and Flounder hatch a chick together
Scampi and Flounder (Chester Zoo)
Scampi and Flounder (Chester Zoo)
An endangered, gay penguin couple at Chester Zoo in the UK have hatched a chick in what has been widely celebrated as “fantastic news for the species”.
The Humboldt chick was born to male penguin couple Scampi and Flounder at Chester Zoo in April and is one of 10 adorable youngsters to have hatched to parents in zoo’s 63-strong colony.
The chicks began hatching from their eggs between 16 and 28 April 2025 in what zookeepers have described as a “bumper year for penguins” and have spent their first few weeks of life tucked away in their nest burrows.
The zoo said “devoted duo” Scampi and Flounder stepped in to help raise one of two eggs laid by another penguin pair, Wotsit and Peach.
Bird experts carefully shared the eggs between the two nests with the aim of giving both chicks the “best possible start and help improve chances of successful fledging”.
Humboldt penguins, native to the rocky coastal shores of Peru and Chile, are one of the most at risk out of the world’s 17 species of penguin due to various threats including climate change, over fishing and rising ocean temperatures, with the species classed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Zookeepers supported all the penguin parents during this vital time by providing plenty of extra fish, which the adult penguins swallow, blend into a protein-rich soup and then regurgitate to feed the chicks.
Zoe Sweetman, Team Manager of Penguins said: “Ten chicks hatching in one season marks a bumper year for the penguins here.
“It’s fantastic news for the species and a brilliant success for the international conservation breeding programme.
“The fluffy new arrivals are all being looked after brilliantly by their parents, having nearly quadrupled in size since they first emerged!”
Sweetman added the chicks are just days away from a “really exciting milestone – their very first swimming lessons”, which she said is “always a thrill to witness as they dive into the pool for the very first time”.
“In what has been one of our long standing traditions, each year we pick a fun theme to help name our chicks, which helps us keep track of who is who now that there are 63 penguins in the colony,” Sweetman went on to say.
“This year we’ve gone with a celestial theme for naming the chicks and we’ve had a lot of fun coming up with names inspired by stars, constellations and cosmic wonders.”
Eight of the ten chicks have already been named, with their out-of-this-world designations including Ursa, Alcyone, Quasar, Orion, Dorado, Cassiopeia, Altair and Xena.
The final two chicks will be named by the public, who can submit suggestions via Chester Zoo’s social media pages.
Scampi and Flounder are certainly not the first same-sex penguin couple to make the news for raising a chick.
Arguably the most famous gay penguins were Gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic became gay icons in 2018 when news of their same-sex courtship made headlines around the world.
After the besotted birds had hoarded pebbles to build a nest during the breeding season, zookeepers gave them a dummy egg to incubate before making the decision to give them a real one.
The pair turned out to be “absolute naturals” at parenting and Sphengic (Lara) was born in 2018, followed by Clancy two years later.
In August 2024, Sphen sadly passed away and wqs mourned by Magic, the zoo’s staff and fans right around the world.
In the wild, when a penguin’s partner dies the living one will often search for them, so staff at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium – where the coupled lived – decided it would be best to show Magic that Sphen had died – to help him see that “his partner wouldn’t be returning”.
Penguin-keeper Renee Howell described the moment Magic saw Sphen as deeply emotional because he started singing, with the wider colony then joining in.
“It was a very beautiful moment, the air was just filled with their singing. It showed the impact [Sphen] had on his partner and that [Magic] actually recognised his partner was there,” Howell said, The Guardian reported.
Staff said Sphen and Magic shared a bond “unlike most other penguin couples” and could often be found together outside the breeding season.
In 2019, lesbian penguin parents hatched a chick at Sea Life London Aquarium while the children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, is based on the real-life story of two male chinstrap penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo.
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