The penguin chick has been born to Flipper and Mr Molt, two of the eight Humboldt penguins brought to the city from Seoul in July 2016.
Mumbai: This Independence Day, Mumbai got a surprise gift in the form of a 75-gram tiny penguin chick, the first to be born in India.
The baby penguin — hatched out of an egg at 8.02 pm Wednesday at Mumbai’s Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan, popularly known as the Byculla zoo — is an offspring of two of the eight Humboldt penguins brought to the city from Seoul in July 2016.
The penguins, based on their attributes, are all named after popular cartoon characters — Donald, Daisy, Popeye, Olive, Flipper, Bubble, Mr Molt and Dory, who died a few months after coming to Mumbai due to a bacterial infection.
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The penguin chick was born to Flipper, the oldest female among the Humboldts, and Mr Molt, the youngest male penguin in the zoo.
The parents are currently taking care of their baby through a process called ‘brooding’.
Dr Madhumita Kale, head veterinarian at the zoo, told ThePrint, “The chick cannot regulate its temperature yet. So, the parents are taking care of it, feeding it.”
“This process will go on for the next three to four months,” she said.
The chick appears to be fine, but the next three months are crucial, according to the veterinarian. “Most importantly, it should feed well,” Kale added.
Zoo authorities announced the arrival of the newborn early Thursday with a statement, saying, “It (the chick) appeared to be active and mother Flipper was trying to feed it too.”
Authorities are yet to ascertain the baby penguin’s gender yet. “We need to have a DNA analysis for that. It can be done in the next few days,” Kale said.
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Penguin Flipper laid an egg on 5 July after mating with Mr Molt in the enclosure created for the Humboldt penguins inside the Byculla zoo. Since then, the parents had been taking turns at incubating the egg, zoo officials say.
While Flipper did most of the heavy-lifting, often incubating the egg for three to four days at a stretch, going without food, the father too did his bit although he did not stop eating.
Four doctors and three zoo keepers monitored the activity through the entire 40-week incubation period. The penguin enclosure has surveillance cameras and there is one doctor always available on site.
Meanwhile, the enclosure has been kept open for the tourists as usual. “People will not be able to see the chick yet as it is in one corner of the enclosure where the parents are brooding it,” Kale said.
“We have barricaded that part so that the other penguins do not venture there,” she added.