Kansas City Zoo reveals gender of the first King penguin hatched there
The color of the inside of the penguin cake at the Kansas City Zoo on Thursday was ... blue.
The gender of the first king penguin to be hatched at the zoo was revealed to cheers and applause among the zookeeper staff. It’s a boy.
You can’t tell by looking at a penguin chick because there are no external body parts. It requires a blood test to determine the sex. Even the keepers didn’t know until the cake was sliced.
The zoo posted a video of the reveal on Facebook.
The chick hatched on Nov. 8 and is being hand-fed by zoo staffers because its parents are at the Saint Louis Zoo. That zoo had a surplus egg and provided it to Kansas City, where it was incubated. It will not join the 15 adult king penguins on display here for several months.
Kings are the second largest penguin species after emperors. This male will grow to be about 33 pounds and as tall as a yardstick.
Matt Campbell: 816-234-4902, @MattCampbellKC
This story was originally published December 7, 2017 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Kansas City Zoo reveals gender of the first King penguin hatched there."