As per Sydney’s Sealife Aquarium, the celebrated Australian penguin called Sphen has died on 22nd August.
The male gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic became famous in 2018. That was the year they constructed a nest of stones. In one case, two other pairs with penguins were forced to donate them eggs for hatching by the couple leading to their initial chick named Sphengic the following year and Clancy two years later.
In captivity, it is unusual for a penguin to live beyond its twelfth birthday, which is just about what happened to Sphen, the elder partner of this “same-sex” penguin “power couple”.
By then they had become gay icons both outside and within Australia; starring in Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras as well as featuring in Atypical series from Netflix. However, there have been voices of conservatives who are against the celebration of these birds being pushed into politics.
This is different among many mammals because both males and females share parental responsibilities equally. Same-sex relationships in wild exist between both females and males though they don’t usually last long.
This case is not only unique for Magic and Sphen but also for several zoos worldwide where similar incidents have been reported. For example at Berlin zoo in 2009 two homophile males (penguins) Z and Vielpunkt managed to hatch a chick which was deserted by his heterosexual parents whereas before that Roy & Silo another pair of male chinstrap penguins at New York zoo were frequently caught trying to make babies together.
