The Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium, in County Kerry, Ireland, welcomes its first gay (LGBT?) penguins.
They’re lesbians, to be exact.
Their names are Missy and Penelope, and they’ve just settled in together for breeding season, when penguins, apparently, traditionally pair off.
Sometimes, as in the case of the lucky girls, the pairings are, well, kinda gay.
Oceanworld’s Web site has photos of Missy and Penelope, and a quick description of each. Missy is reportedly “a fun-loving girl, confident and brave. She loves playing and interacting with visitors through the large windows of the enclosure.” Penelope, on the other hand, “is a bit shy but absolutely loves swimming, preening, and keeping herself looking clean and beautiful.”
Hmm, I think I know that penguin.
“Born in 2008. Missy is a fun-loving girl, confident and brave. She loves playing and interacting with visitors through the large windows of the enclosure.”
“Born in 2007. She is a bit shy but absolutely loves swimming, preening, and keeping herself looking clean and beautiful.”
You might remember a more infamous penguin-pair from a few years ago – Buddy and Pedro of the Toronto Zoo.
At the time, the zoo provoked an outcry by announcing it was going to “ex-gay” Buddy and Pedro’s budding bromance. (In all fairness to the zoo, Buddy and Pedro had “excellent genes,” and the zoo needed to breed the two to help the species live-long prosper.)
But there were even more gay penguins over at the Berlin Zoo back in 2009. In that story, two male penguins had created their own nest, and were given an egg that was abandoned by its mother. The two males incubated the egg for a month, hatched the penguin baby, and then took care of the infant.
The infamous Taiwanese animators did a job on Buddy and Pedro back in 2011. It’s a wee bit homophobic, but all is forgiven for the Marcus (Mr. Michele) Bachmann cameo.
