Move over Colin Farrell, there’s another penguin in town, and this one isn’t a murderous Batman bad guy. We’re talking, of course, about a baby King penguin named Pesto, whose cuteness (and size) has taken social media by storm and made him an instant star.
But why is he so big? The answer is both surprising and obvious at the same time.
Born in January at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium and currently bigger than both his parents combined, Pesto weighs in at an impressive 49 pounds. To put that into perspective, a King Penguin weighs an average of anywhere between 20 and 30 pounds when they’re full-grown.
“He’s officially the largest chick SEA LIFE Melbourne has ever seen, making him a huge hit with guests and fans around the world,” the aquarium said. Pesto’s parents each weigh about 24 pounds each.
His huge stature can be attributed to a few different things. For one, his dad Blake is one of the biggest and oldest King penguins at the aquarium ever, and Pesto has a really big appetite that sees him munching down around 25 fish a day.
As he got older that number continued to grow. The aquarium’s education supervisor Jacinta Early told the AP that Pesto had recently eaten 53 pounds of fish in the last week. That’s more than he weighs!
While it may seem like Pesto is gorging himself, a veterinarian at the aquarium said that as a chick, Pesto is eating just the right amount of food for a growing boy. He will slim down a little when he starts to get older and as his cute brown fuzzy fur transitions into the customary black and white plumage of an adult.
“He’s going to start losing that really adorable baby fluff. It might take him one to two months to really get rid of it. Then he’ll be nice and sleek and streamlined,” Early said.
When all is said and done he should shrink down to a manageable 33 pounds. In the meantime, though, he’s one of the most popular animals in the world, with the aquarium sharing that he’s been viewed more than 1.9 billion times throughout all the organization’s social channels.
Pesto’s popularity exploded in the past few days when the aquarium shared a video of a gender reveal for Pesto. Zookeepers at the aquarium explained that you can’t tell the gender of a King penguin through sight alone – only a blood test can reveal a penguin’s gender with 100 percent certainty. People have also affectionately taken to calling the penguin a massive “fatty.”