CHICAGO — The Lincoln Park Zoo has a brand new, fuzzy, adorable, perfect baby penguin.
Repeat: Baby penguin, people.
The endangered African penguin chick was hatched on Nov. 26, and the zoo revealed its existence in a Thursday morning news release. Though the baby’s sex has yet to be determined, a wellness check showed he or she is healthy, according to the zoo.
The chick’s parents are Sunny and TJ, who have been paired up for years and are “doing a remarkable job caring for the chick,” according to the zoo.
“Our keepers are constantly monitoring both the parents and the chick to ensure that the parents are meeting the chick’s needs as it reaches developmental milestones,” said Sunny Nelson, the curator of birds. “Both Sunny and TJ are performing parental duties as expected, sharing brooding and feeding responsibilities.”
It’ll still be a while before the chick enters the zoo’s penguin exhibit, though. African penguin chicks typically leave the nest at 70-80 days old, according to the zoo, and the baby penguin will have soft, downy feathers until it molts as a juvenile.
Once the penguin is 1 or 2 years old, it will molt and have the “tuxedo-like adult plumage” penguins are famous for, according to the zoo.
The zoo chronicles the penguin colony’s day-to-day life with its “All My Penguins” blog. The blog follows the penguins’ drama as they look for love (and cheat on their partners), raise their chicks and fight over fish.
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