{"id":67946,"date":"2026-02-06T18:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/67946\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T18:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:16:07","slug":"it-takes-two-animal-pairs-at-the-aquarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/67946\/","title":{"rendered":"It Takes Two: Animal Pairs at the Aquarium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tAfrican penguins\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While films like\u00a0March of the Penguins\u00a0have highlighted the species\u2019\u00a0seemingly unbreakable\u00a0fidelity, the reality is that\u00a0penguins, like those in our African and southern rockhopper colonies, can be a bit\u00a0fickler.\u00a0Long-term pairing is the norm,\u00a0and many penguins will pair up for\u00a0most of\u00a0their lives\u2014but\u00a0penguin \u201cbreakups\u201d can still happen.\u00a0Sometimes, birds are only together for one or a few breeding seasons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Preening, loud calls, headshaking, and bowing are all behaviors the birds will display for their partners.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0also territorial, and pairs will stake out a spot on the\u00a0exhibit\u00a0islands to call their own. Over on \u201cretirement island,\u201d where<a href=\"https:\/\/www.neaq.org\/older-penguins-move-to-new-retirement-home-island-at-the-aquarium\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> elder African penguins enjoy a slower pace of life<\/a>, Lambert and his younger mate Dyer have laid claim to the very top of the island. While Lambert takes it easy, Dyer can be spotted swimming around the exhibit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The birds often pair up organically, but occasionally our Animal Care staff does a bit of \u201cmatchmaking.\u201d African penguins are critically endangered in the wild, and here at the Aquarium, we\u00a0participate\u00a0in a Species Survival Program (SSP), which supports field conservation efforts as well as responsible breeding to promote a sustainable future for these endangered penguins.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Namibia IV was donated to the New England Aquarium from the Georgia Aquarium as part of the SSP and was \u201cset up\u201d with Jahleel III, a then single male. They quickly formed a bond and have now successfully hatched several chicks together! When visiting the Aquarium, you can spot this couple by their green and orange bracelets on their wings\u2014Jahleel\u2019s is on the left, and Namibia\u2019s is on the right<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"African penguins\u00a0 While films like\u00a0March of the Penguins\u00a0have highlighted the species\u2019\u00a0seemingly unbreakable\u00a0fidelity, the reality is that\u00a0penguins, like those&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102],"class_list":{"0":"post-67946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-namibia","8":"tag-namibia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116025057895749102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}