Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper is celebrating Thanksgiving this year with four new gentoo penguin chicks.
“Every year, around February, the penguins go into nesting season,” said Rebecca Westover, curator of mammals at the aquarium. “We usually let them sit on the nests with their parents until they’re big enough to kind of wander around, and then we’ll bring them in the back. They’ll get to learn how to eat from us. And then we just keep them back there until they’re full-grown, and then they go back on exhibit.”
The four new chicks — two male and two female — are named Bodie, Stanley, Lumi and Isla. The naming process took several months and was only recently finalized after the chicks were mature enough to undergo blood testing to determine their gender.
“There’s no physical characteristics to tell them apart,” Westover explained, adding that penguin reproductive organs are internal. Once the chicks’ gender was determined, the names were chosen in honor of the Falkland Islands, where gentoo penguins are native.
Gentoo penguins are the fastest-swimming penguin breed, clocking speeds up to 22 mph. They also eat up to 10% of their body weight each day.
Penguin parents are careful to take care of their own young, maintaining the family unit. Such biparental care is found in just a handful of species, and that includes gentoo penguins, where both the male and female are active in raising the chicks.
Penguins often mate for life, potentially parenting multiple chicks over several seasons. That is not always the case, Westover said.
“We have some penguins that have been with the same male or female for years, and then we have some that switch every season,” she said. “It just really depends.”
The penguins have a unique courting ritual, unlike those of many other bird species.
“They’ll usually bow to each other. The male will bow, and then if the female bows back, it means that she is interested. And then he’ll just kind of follow her around for a little while,” Westover said. “He’ll present her with rocks to build a nest, and if she likes those rocks, they’ll start building a nest together.”
Caretakers at the aquarium don’t get the day off for Thanksgiving, as the animals need to eat every day.
The four new baby gentoos will join the other penguins in the Marine Rocky Shores enclosure at the aquarium, which includes mostly gentoo, but also includes marconi penguins that the aquarium acquired last year. There are no planned chicks from the newcomers to the aquarium just yet, as they are still adjusting to the new environment.
Westover hopes to see eggs from the marconis next year or the year after.
Visitors can spot the gentoo penguin chicks by their different colored wing bands. They might also be hard to spot, as the lights in the enclosure are dimmed during the early winter months in order to simulate their natural habitat in the Sub-Antarctic islands.