Moody Gardens is giving thanks for its newest additions: two Gentoo penguin chicks. Their eggs were due to hatch Thanksgiving weekend. One waited until Sunday evening to make its big debut. The second of the two chicks arrived stylishly late on Monday morning.

This is the second successful Gentoo penguin breeding at Moody Gardens. The first pair hatched in early November. The adult Gentoo penguins have been on display at the aquarium for about a year. They joined King and Rockhopper penguins also on display. Now that they have adjusted to their environment - enough to lay eggs! - the staff have stepped back to let mom and dad rear the chicks. The parents of the first Gentoo chicks to hatch there have been parenting their offspring quite well.

"The parents obviously know what they’re doing," said Diane Olsen, assistant curator at the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid. The staff is hopeful that the second penguin pair will follow in their footsteps. "It should be a busy time for us," Olsen said. "We also have four King penguin eggs on exhibit as well, so we might have lots of little babies coming up soon."

Penguin parents take equal care of their chicks and feed them a steady diet of regurgitated fish. Aquarium staff will remove the chicks regularly to check their weight. After a few weeks and once it is established that the penguin chicks are thriving, the weigh-ins will happen less often.

1 Comments

allison fisher said:

Can you keep penguins as pets?

November 30, 2005 12:07 PM

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