They were the penguin power couple , a world-famous same-sex pairing whose love was taught about in schools and inspired a pride parade float. Now Magic, mourning Sphen's death , has led their community in a tribute song. Sphen died earlier this month just before his 12th birthday, the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium said Thursday, a long life for a Gentoo penguin in captivity who can live up to 13 years.
“The loss of Sphen is heartbreaking to the penguin colony, the team and everyone who has been inspired or positively impacted by Sphen and Magic’s story,” the aquarium’s general manager Richard Dilly said in a statement. To process the loss of his partner, Magic, 8, was taken to Sphen’s body “so that he could understand his partner wouldn’t return,” Dilly said. “He immediately started singing, which was beautifully reciprocated by the colony,” Dilly added.
Sphen and Magic rose to celebrity status in 2018 when they began collecting pebbles to create a nest and became almost inseparable, regularly seen waddling around and swimming together. The duo were together for nearly six years, roughly half their average life span, and began expanding their family soon after. They co-parented two chicks, Lara, in 2018, and Clancy in 2020.
Lara was nicknamed Sphengic after her parents by the public. “It was a beautiful example of co-parenting as a same sex couple,” Vincent Savolainen, a professor of organismic biology at Imperial College London, told NBC News. The parents.