| Porthole 09 Dec 24

A British zoo has renamed one of its female king penguins after discovering the 10-year-old bird is, in fact, a male.

Birdland Park and Gardens in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, recently announced that ‘Maggie’ will now go by the name ‘Magnus’, following a DNA test confirming that the penguin had in fact been misgendered when the zoo first acquired him in 2016.

“Discovering that Magnus is actually a male and his gender differs from what we initially believed presents another unique hurdle in our efforts to establish a successful breeding program here in the UK,” Alistair Keen, the head keeper at Birdland, told The Telegraph.

Suspicions were raised about the penguin’s gender when the zoo keepers noticed “her” making the first move with a fellow penguin – a behaviour typical of males.