Same-sex penguins couple up during nesting season at Melbourne aquarium

Jones and Klaus make up one of two same-sex male gentoo penguin couples who have partnered up Melbourne’s Sea Life aquarium

(Picture: Sea Life Melbourne)

Two male penguin couples have formed at a Melbourne aquarium as they go through their annual mating season.

The aquarium has announced the same-sex duos of Tiger and Branston and Jones and Klaus are among its latest gentoo penguin partnerships.

Mating rituals among penguins typically involve one – usually a male – gifting a pebble to a potential mate.

The pebbles are then used in building nests for any eggs that are laid.

Same-sex behaviour has been observed in more than 1,500 animal species, according to a 2019 study published in peer-reviewed online journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Lead bird keeper Tanith Davis said the aquarium often fostered eggs to male-male penguin pairs and same-sex couples were not unusual in penguins.

“Same-sex penguin pairs will court each other and incubate an egg exactly the same way as a male-female pair,” she told the AP.

“As male-male pairs can’t lay their own eggs, we will sometimes foster an egg to them from another pair.

“Sea Life Melbourne has had many same-sex couples in our breeding history, and they have been doting parents.”