Wednesday, January 12, 2000

Penguin eggs surprise aquarium

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Keeper awaits fertility signs

BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Crystal Phillips, penguin keeper at the Newport Aquarium, measures a penguin egg. (Patrick Reddy photos) | ZOOM |

        NEWPORT — The penguin expert at the Oceanic Adventures Newport Aquarium was surprised recently when two female King penguins each laid a single egg in the aquarium's Kingdom of Penguins exhibit.

        “This is sooner than we expected,” senior aquatic biologist Crystal Phillips, the penguins' keeper, said Tuesday.“We felt it would be a while yet before we saw any eggs, because the penguins are just pairing off.”

        The two eggs were removed from the exhibit and placed in an incubator away from the main exhibit area. Ms. Phillips maintains a vigil on the eggs, periodically weighing then.

A male King penguin, fooled by its keepers, cradles a wooden egg under its belly. | ZOOM |

        “If the eggs begin to lose weight, that usually means the embryo is absorbing the nutrient matter in the egg and it's fertile,” she said. “There's about a 50-50 chance the eggs are fertile, but we won't know for a few weeks.”

        The incubator, which is made of cedar because that wood holds humidity, keeps the eggs warm and rotates them.

        Ms. Phillips has been able to fool the parent penguins into thinking they are still sit ting on the eggs. When she realized they had eggs, she distracted each sitting penguin, removed the eggs and replaced them with a wooden egg of the same size and shape. Both pairs are tending the imitation eggs.

        The eggs are held on the top of the penguins' feet and kept warm with their feathered belly.

        Penguins mate for life, and usually the male assumes his share of caring for the egg at first and is eventually relieved of his duty by the female, who keeps the egg until it hatches. Total gestation period for King penguin eggs is about 60 days.

        But the male of one of the aquarium pairs chose not to take his fatherly duties seriously, and the female has been sitting on the wooden egg from the start.

        “She isn't very happy about it,” said Ms. Phillips, who has come to recognize each of the 16 King penguins by sight. “She's given him some dirty looks and turns her back on him.”

        King penguins lay eggs every 1¹/₂ years. Ms. Phillips said if the eggs are fertile they will be returned to the parents once they begin to pip (hatch) so the parents can encourage their offspring to break free, which usually takes two or three days.

        If chicks hatch, they will be cared for by their parents for 6-10 months until they can fend for themselves.

       

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