None of them can lay an egg, but the heart wants what the heart wants and two sets of male penguins have coupled up this nesting season at Melbourne aquarium.
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The aquarium has announced the same-sex duos of Tiger and Branston and Jones and Klaus are among its latest gentoo penguin partnerships.
Lead bird keeper Tanith Davis said the aquarium often fostered eggs to male-male penguin pairs and same-sex couples were not unusual in the animal kingdom.
"Same-sex penguin pairs will court each other and incubate an egg exactly the same way as a male-female pair," she said in a statement to AAP.
"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."
Gentoo penguins nest once a year just before the start of spring, with both sexes sharing parenting duties and collecting rocks to build a comfortable home for their eggs.
Same-sex sexual behaviour has been observed in over 1500 animal species, according to a 2019 study published in peer-reviewed online journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Australian Associated Press
