The sordid tale of a desperate penguin
The TV housewives of Wisteria Lane have got nothing on this widow, who stole her neighbors' husbands, fell into the flippers of a younger male, and now is winging it as a single mom.
First she thoroughly breached all sense of propriety among her penguin peers by stealing spouses, brawling with another female and seducing an uninitiated adolescent male.
Now, separated from the rest of the Brookfield Zoo colony, Zurita has likely become the world's first successful single-parent penguin, raising a chick fathered by a much younger companion who can't be bothered to help out.
Her soap-opera story has delighted zookeepers, who believe that in watching Zurita they have gleaned important insights into improving the husbandry and genetic diversity of captive Humboldt penguins.
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With Zorro gone and no available male in the colony, Zurita began looking for love in the wrong places, by soliciting males already spoken for.
One ended up giving her a fertile egg, but when keepers discovered the male was Zurita's cousin, they took the egg away to avoid the dangers of inbreeding. Still, Zurita continued to look for male conquests.
She continued to solicit males from established pairs," Broniewicz said.
When she approached a male named Popero, his mate, Bumblebee, confronted Zurita in a violent tussle.
Penguins have sharp beaks and a strong bite, and the two females went after each other's faces, trying to cut each other and pounding away with their powerful wing flippers.
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