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The Humboldt Penguin is a penguin native to coastal Chile and Peru. While the Humboldt Penguin bears the same distinctive black and white coloration of other penguins, they also have splotches of pink on their face, feet, and the underside of their wings. These splotches are not a different color of feathers, but patches of bare skin, and help keep the Humboldt Penguin cool in their native habitat’s triple digit (fahrenheit) weather. To protect their eggs, the Humboldt Penguin burrows into the layers of guano (built up bird poo) that can stretch feet deep, and makes a nest in that way. Humboldt Penguins are generally monogamous, but sometimes females will try to mate with a different male, and sometimes single males will try to “usurp” an established pair. In one occasion, in a zoo in Germany, two male Humboldt Penguins (Dotty and Zee) worked together to hatch and raise an egg that had been abandoned by its parents. A Humboldt Penguin, only known by his number 337, escaped from a zoo in Tokyo and managed to live in Tokyo Bay for 82 days until being recaptured. A Humboldt Penguin, named Grape-kun, had his heart stolen by the cutout of a character from the anime Kemono Friends placed in his habitat, and in turn, stole the hearts of millions around the world.

This post is dedicated to Grape-kun (April 16, 1996 - October 12, 2017).