A pair of male penguins from a zoo in the Netherlands stole an entire nest of eggs from a pair of female penguins • Although they incubate the eggs with dedication, they are likely to be disappointed
Penguin incubator
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A pair of male penguins at the Direnpark Zoo in the city of Amersport in the Netherlands made headlines last year when they stole an egg before hatching and incubated it.
This year they raised the bar, stealing an entire nest of eggs - from a pair of female penguins.
Last year, a pair of African penguins managed to "carry" an egg from another penguin family, in a brief moment that the eggs were unguarded.
This egg failed to produce a chick, however the pair did not say desperate and raised the stakes: this time they took a whole nest of eggs, from the female pair.
The male winged pair behaves like any pair of heterosexual penguins: they heat their eggs in turns, while the other mate eats.
However, this devotion will probably not help the offspring pair this year either: the zoo says the eggs are unlikely to hatch, as they were probably not fertilized at all - given that they were laid by a same-sex couple.
According to the zoo staff, the (perhaps) future fathers are a particularly dominant pair in the 17-item penguin group at the zoo.
"Each couple in the compound has their own 'room', but this couple has taken over two rooms," a caretaker at the zoo RTV Utrecht told the zoo.
Penguins breed twice a year, and the deprived females will likely build a new nest soon, the zoo says.
Homosexuality is quite common among penguins, and there have been quite a few reports around the world of a homosexual couple raising chicks.
