Eating fish and stealing hearts: Pesto the huge penguin chick becomes a social media star
Pesto waddling around the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia
A penguin chick named Pesto who weighs more than both of his parents combined has become Australia's newest social media celebrity.
Weighing 22 kilograms (49 pounds) at nine months old, Pesto is the heaviest penguin chick ever recorded at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, eating 25 fish a day.
In comparison, his parents, Hudson and Tango weigh 11 kilograms (24 pounds) each.
Due to his mammoth size, Pesto has reached global stardom, more than 1.9 billion people around the world have viewed him on social media, the aquarium said.
The aquarium’s education supervisor Jacinta Early said on Friday that Pesto has eaten more than his own weight in fish over the past week - 24kg (53 pounds) in total.
The aquarium recently shared a video of Pesto's gender reveal, explaining that zookeepers cannot determine a king penguin's gender visually; a small blood sample must be sent for testing.
One Tiktok user commented: "The definition of oh lawd he comin".
"Ok but how big was the egg?!" another said.
Veterinarians say that this amount of food is healthy for a chick nearing adulthood.
His growth is expected to plateau as he enters his fledging period. He has started to lose his brown feathers and will replace them with the black and white plumage of a young adult.
He has begun shedding his brown feathers, which will soon be replaced by the black and white plumage of a young adult.
His keepers expect him to slim down to about 15kg (33 pounds) during this transition.
“He’s going to start losing that really adorable baby fluff. It might take him one to two months to really get rid of it. Then he’ll be nice and sleek and streamlined,” Early said.
However, she believes Pesto will remain recognisable as the global TikTok sensation he’s become for another two weeks.
Pesto, who hatched on January 31, was the only king penguin chick born at the aquarium this year and the first since 2022, when six hatched.
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The reason for no hatchlings last year is unclear.
Adult king penguins weigh between 9.5kg (21 pounds) and 18kg (40 pounds), according to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, a global environmental group.
They are the second largest penguin species in the world, after the emperor penguin.
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