fat baby penguin and viral superstar

Among the sea of ​​shiny black and white penguins that call the famous Australian aquarium home, one bird stands out like a sore thumb.

Chocolate brown, embarrassingly brown, and a head taller than his foster parents – and weighing more than both of them combined – is Pesto.

Dubbed “fat”, “absolute unit”, and “linebacker”, this singing chick has become very popular and has attracted a lot of devoted fans, including music star Katy Perry.

Pesto has reached an audience of billions – dominating social media algorithms, securing wall-to-wall morning TV coverage in the US and UK, and drawing travelers from around the world to Melbourne’s Sea Life Aquarium.

Born in January weighing just 200g (7oz), the nine-month-old king penguin is now more than 100 times its size. Weighing in at 22.5kg (50lb), it is the biggest chick the aquarium has ever seen.

It’s common for penguins to pile on “healthy baby chub” after hatching, the aquarium’s Jacinta Early tells the BBC, but keepers had no idea Pesto would get so big.

“It’s a natural combination [and] grow, really,” explained the marine biologist.

Pesto’s biological father is quite tall, but he’s also well looked after by his adoptive parents Tango and Hudson: “He’s dwarfing us now, which makes him look ridiculously big.”

Hand-fed several times a day, Ms Early says Pesto’s huge heft is also due to her “very healthy appetite” – a gentle way of saying she eats up to 30 fish a day.

But he insists he’s healthy – he’s actually half fluff – and will soon start losing weight naturally.

“If I let him down, my whole finger would die [disappear] deep in his feathers,” said Ms. Early.

“If he starts to get pale, he’s going to lose a lot of that baby weight, and he’s going to lose a lot of that weight, so he’s going to lose weight nice and easy.”

She’s already lost her baby feathers, but says there’s more to Pesto than her cute looks.

He describes her as a butterfly who talks to people in a “pretty little whistle” and likes to annoy the old penguins “just like a little kid”.

“He is usually the first to say something [to keepers] and he responds to his name.”

“We definitely have our favorites,” Ms. Early said, according to officials. “[But] Pesto seems to love all the goalkeepers.”

Even though the goalkeepers have been obsessed with the chick for a long time, seeing the love attracted by the public has been absurd, he says.

It’s the aquarium’s busiest time of year, during the school holidays, but visitors have been flocking to the penguin exhibit to catch a glimpse of the glorified pom-pom.

“[You’ll be] hearing a guest you’ve never met before say, ‘Hey, where’s the Pesto?’

“It’s strange to hear people call our penguins by their real names, because they are not well known.”

Olivia Wilson, who was in charge of the news program wanted by Pesto for the aquarium, jokes that she is not sure which is the bigger solution to go to Melbourne this weekend: Pesto or the Australian Football League grand final – a sporting event taken so seriously that the whole country of Victoria. you get a holiday the day before the celebration.

“You mention the country, and you have talked about him in the media … there are very few places in the world that have not had a love for Pesto.”

By his metrics, Pesto has reached an audience of about 5 billion and seems to have been taken down The incredibly versatile Thai hippopotamus as the internet’s favorite animal.

“People traded him Bitcoin, which was unbelievable,” said Ms. Wilson.

“Move over Moo Deng, actually.”