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Like so many gay guys before them, Buddy and Pedro, the partnered penguins at the Toronto Zoo, are being asked to pass on their desirable genes and get some ladies pregnant.
The May-December relationship of Buddy, 20, and Pedro, 10, has made headlines since the pair, who relocated to Toronto from their all-male flock at a zoo in Toledo, were slated to be separated. The boys were to be split in order for them to knock up some lady penguins and increase the numbers of African penguins, which are currently endangered.
"It's a complicated issue, but they seem to be in a loving relationship of some sort,'' the chair of the zoo tells the Toronto Star.
"They do courtship and mating behaviors that females and males would do,'' a zookeeper adds.
The penguins have what zoo types call a "social bond," which means they spend all their time together and they are known to beckon one another with a mating call. You might remember similar behavior being exhibited by Roy and Silo, two male penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo, who were a serious couple and even raised a baby penguin, Tango, together.
According to zoo officials, the boys will be reunited in the spring after they've drawn a deep breath, covered their eyes, and done what they have to do to make sure the species lives on.
