• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Sphen, One Half Of Famous Same-Sex Penguin Power Couple, Dies Aged 11

August 22, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Sphen the gentoo penguin, best known as one half of a much-beloved same-sex power couple and parenting duo at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, has died at the age of 11 – and left behind an impressive legacy.

Advertisement

“The loss of Sphen is heartbreaking to the penguin colony, the team, and everyone who has been inspired or positively impacted by Sphen and Magic’s story,” the aquarium’s general manager Richard Dilly said in a statement seen by the BBC.

Alongside partner Magic, Sphen first hit the headlines back in 2018, when the breeding season saw the pair’s romance begin to flourish.

“We’d go over there, and Magic and Sphen would be bowing to each other,” Tish Hannan, the aquarium’s penguin department supervisor, told ABC News at the time. “Bowing is a gentoo way of saying they love each other, which is super cute.”

That love led to them building a pebble nest ready for an egg like the other penguin couples in the colony, and not wanting them to miss out, staff at the aquarium gave them a dummy egg to look after.

When it became apparent that they’d passed the parenting trial shift with flying colors, Sphen and Magic were given a real egg from another couple and successfully incubated and raised chick Sphengic (after their ship name) in 2018 and later Clancy in 2020.

Advertisement

Not only did their relationship go beyond the strength of the bond usually seen between gentoo penguin couples – “[T]hey could even be found together outside of the breeding season, which is unique for gentoo penguins,” said Sea Life Sydney in a statement – but it also made them icons of equality, with their fame bringing attention to the prevalence of same-sex relationships in the animal world.



“They inspired a Mardi Gras float, have been included in the NSW education syllabus, and even featured in the Netflix series Atypical. Countless books speak of their love story, even documentaries on same-sex animal couples have featured Sphen and Magic,” said the aquarium.

Though reported much less frequently by scientists than it is found, same-sex behavior in the animal world is common, with a recent study finding that it’s been reported in over 1,500 animal species so far, although according to author of A Little Gay Natural History, Josh Davis, it is likely far more.   

Advertisement

“Whilst it has only been officially recorded in around 1,500 species, this figure is likely a massive underestimate,” Davis said in a recent interview with IFLScience. “This is because it can be found in pretty much every branch of the evolutionary tree, from beetles and butterflies to turtles and squirrels, so the idea that it is limited to just a few hundred species out of the 2.13 million described to date is incredibly unlikely.”

Although penguins are perhaps some of the best known examples – Sphen and Magic aren’t the only famous couple – same-sex behavior, including parenting, has been found beyond birds too, including in mammals, fish, and insects.

Add to that the awareness that Sphen’s fame brought towards conservation, and you get a small bird leaving behind one huge legacy.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. ARK Invest’s Wood expects market rotation back to growth stocks
  2. Bond is back: 007 film ‘No Time To Die’ premieres in London
  3. A Weight-Loss Drug Has Been Approved For Obese Children 12 And Up
  4. Does Data Storage Impact Phone Weight? The Surprising Results Of Our Calculations

Source Link: Sphen, One Half Of Famous Same-Sex Penguin Power Couple, Dies Aged 11

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • President Trump’s Cuts To USAID Could Result In A “Staggering” 14 Million Avoidable Deaths By 2030
  • Dzo: Hybrids Beasts That Are Perfectly Crafted For Life On Earth’s Highest Mountains
  • “Rarest Event Ever” Had A Half-Life 1 Trillion Times Longer Than The Age Of The Universe – How Did We See It?
  • Meet The Bille, A Self-Righting Tetrahedron That Nobody Was Sure Could Exist
  • Neurogenesis Confirmed: Adult Brains Really Do Make New Hippocampal Neurons
  • RFK Jr Suggested Letting Bird Flu Run Through Farms – Experts Still Think It’s A Bad Idea
  • “For Unknown Reasons”: Mystery Of The Oldest Human Remains Ever Found In Antarctica
  • Alaska’s Wilderness At Risk As Trump Opens “Up To 82 Percent” Of National Reserve To Drilling
  • “Life-Changing” Gene Therapy Restores Hearing In Deaf Patients Within Weeks After Just One Shot
  • Man Broke Down Wall In His Basement And Discovered An Ancient Underground City That Once Housed 20,000 People
  • Same-Sex Penguin Couple Adopt And Raise Chick – And They’ve All Got 10/10 Names
  • Dolphins May Not “See” With Echolocation, But Instead “Feel” With It
  • Confirmed! Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Indeed An Interstellar Visitor, Quite Different From Its Predecessors
  • At 192, Jonathan – The Oldest Living Land Animal – Has Lived Through 40 US Presidents
  • 300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools “Made By Denisovans” Discovered In China
  • Why Do Cats Eyes Glow? For The Same Reason Great White Sharks’ Do, Silly
  • G-astronomical News: Michelin-Starred Meal To Be Served On The ISS
  • In 2032, Earth May Witness A Once-In-5,000-Year Event On The Moon
  • Brand New Microscope Designed For Underwater Reveals Stunning Details Of Corals
  • The Atlantic’s Major Circulation Current Is Showing Worrying Signs, But Is Collapse Near?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version