In good news for this week, a gay flamingo couple at Paignton Zoo in England has successfully hatched a chick from an abandoned egg.
The couple, named Curtis and Arthur by the zoo’s Instagram followers, hatched the flamingo chick after the egg was originally abandoned by its original mother. However, the zoo isn’t exactly sure how the couple found the egg.
“Regarding the same-sex parenting, we aren’t entirely sure how this has come about, although it is a known phenomenon in Chilean flamingos as well as other bird flocks,” the zoo wrote in a statement on their website. “The most likely scenario is that the egg was abandoned by another couple, so this pair have ‘adopted’ it.”
The chick is one of the several Chilean flamingo chicks that were successfully hatched this year, marking this as the Paignton Zoo’s first new generation of Chilean flamingos since 2018. As the Chilean flamingo species are declining in their natural environment due to egg harvesting, tourism disturbing their habitat, and mining in the area causing degradation of their habitat, Paignton Zoo has taken on the task of breeding their flamingos. They have documented the whole mating process of several flamingo couples on their Instagram in a series titled “Love Lagoon,” inspired by the popular reality TV show “Love Island.”
The coupling and parenthood of Curtis and Arthur was a wonderful surprise from this process. Same-sex couplings aren’t uncommon for birds, specifically flamingos, as flamingo chicks do not need a mother to feed. “Both male and female flamingo parents feed their fluffy, grey chicks with bright red “crop milk,” which is made in the linings of their digestive tract, and contains fat, protein and blood cells,” writes Gary Bird, the Whipsnade Zoo Curator of Birds. As both parents can provide their chick with the appropriate nutrients, same-sex flamingo parents are essentially the same to a chick as opposite-sex parents.
Congrats to Curtis and Arthur, and here’s to same-sex parents, of any species.
Photo courtesy of social media
