Pesto the baby penguin is already taller than his parents. Now he’s a social media star

He’s a “walking feathery poop machine.” And he’s also a celebrity.

Meet Pesto the king penguin. At just nine months old and 22.5 kilograms (50 pounds), he’s already bigger than his parents at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia.

Photos of Pesto – who is 90 centimeters (about three feet) tall – towering over his parents have gone viral online. He has also provided opportunities for people to learn more about penguins.

Although most people recognize the adult black-and-white birds, king penguins are born covered in brown feathers. Once they learn how to swim, they will begin shedding those feathers – a process known as fledging.

Penguins are also sexually dimorphic, which means you can’t tell their sex by looking at them. In order to discover the genders of their penguins, keepers take a small drop of blood from the penguin’s toe and send it to a lab in order to get an official answer.

Michaela Smale, a penguin keeper who has been at Sea Life since 2018, says that usually for a chick’s gender reveal the Sea Life team just makes cupcakes and informally circulates them among the staff. But Pesto, already used to breaking records, had his own reveal broadcast on social media. In the viral clip, a keeper slices into a white cake to reveal blue inside.

Sea Life’s Instagram page has 25,000 followers.

“I think he’s always going to be a big boy,” says Smale. Once he fledges, “he will shrink and slim down a little but he’s already significantly taller than his dad.”

Pesto’s biological father, Blake, is one of the aquarium’s oldest and largest penguins. But he’s being raised by Tango and Hudson, younger penguins whom Sea Life keepers wanted to try out as parents. Many of the 60 penguins have food-themed names, including Pudding, Whopper, and Lamingtons.

Pesto gets fed about eight fish, four times a day – more than 30 fish a day – twice as many as the average adult penguin.

As he’s still a chick, he also gets some supplemental feed from his parents. With that food comes a lot of waste. Smale explains that penguins poop about every 15 minutes, meaning the keepers are very busy making sure the penguin exhibit is clean when visitors come.

But adulthood is already on the horizon. Pesto has started losing some of his baby feathers, and swimming lessons – from his dad – are likely starting soon.

“Sometimes they become quite independent teenagers, so maybe he’s ready for his bad boy phase,” says Smale.

“I hope he retains some of his quirky personality and hopefully we can follow his adventures as he becomes part of the colony.”