A same-sex penguin couple in New York is making waves after becoming parents to a chick that hatched in January.
Elmer and Lima, a pair of male Humboldt penguins at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, formed a pair bond during the current breeding season and were chosen to be foster parents for the egg, which hatched on New Year's Day and has yet to be named.
The zoo has relied on foster parents to incubate eggs in the past, but Elmer and Lima are the zoo's first same-sex pair to become parents.
"The zoo has at least two breeding pairs of penguins with a history of inadvertently breaking their fertilized eggs. To give the eggs a better chance of hatching a chick, keepers may swap a dummy egg for the real one and give it to a more successful pair to incubate," the zoo said in a statement.
Elmer and Lima were put to the test to evaluate their fostering skills, which not all penguins have.
"Some pairs, when given a dummy egg, will sit on the nest but leave the egg to the side and not incubate it correctly, or they'll fight for who is going to sit on it when," Zoo Director Ted Fox said in a statement. "That's how we evaluate who will be good foster parents."
Fox added that Elmer and Lima were "exemplary in every aspect of egg care" and on December 23, they were given an egg to incubate.
Elmer and Lima did a great job of taking turns incubating the egg until it hatched, according to the zoo. Since then, they've been working as a team to warm and feed the chick.
Fox said same-sex penguin pairs reinforce the idea that non-traditional families do a wonderful job of child-rearing.
"Elmer and Lima's success at fostering is one more story that our zoo can share to help people of all ages and backgrounds relate to animals," Fox said in a statement.
If Elmer and Lima continue to be successful, the zoo said they will be considered to foster future eggs.
Other zoos have had similar luck with same-sex pairs of penguins fostering eggs, including the San Francisco Zoo with Eduardo and Rio, a pair of male Magellanic penguins hailed as model foster parents.
Humboldt penguins are native to the Humboldt current off the coast of Chile and Peru in South America, according to the zoo. They are listed as a vulnerable species, with the wild population declining due to habitat loss and climate change.
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