Detroit Zoo's new baby penguin, Atticus, finally viewable to public: When you can see him
On the heels of last week's World Penguin Day, the Detroit Zoo is marking a milestone with the public debut of its newest king penguin chick, Atticus – who weighs a whopping 40 pounds at just eight months old!
Baby Atticus' egg was laid in June 2024. King penguin chicks develop for an average of 50 days; he hatched on Aug. 19, 2024.
'His parents had raised a chick before, so they had experience,' said Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) bird department supervisor Lindsay Ireland. 'Whenever our king penguins lay eggs in the habitat, we move them to an area not visible, an off-exhibit holding area, so they can incubate their eggs safely and quietly and not be disturbed by the other birds. King penguins co-parent, so they'll take turns incubating the egg and turns feeding the chick once it's hatched. Once the penguin is older, they spend less time sitting on their parents' feet being brooded, which is just them kind of hunching over and keeping the chick warm.'
Now, at eight months, Atticus has begun molting, losing his feathers to completely replace his feather coating.
'Atticus is very curious,' Ireland said of the chick's personality. 'Chunk is his father, and King 25 is his mother. They're both very calm birds, so he kind of inherited that from them. Kings, overall, are a little more standoffish with us. They don't really like to be handled or come up to interact with us a lot, but these parents and Atticus are a little more in tune with what we're doing and they want to know what's going on.
'He likes enrichment that the keepers give to him, so when the parents are out in the habitat and he's in the holding space by himself, the keepers give him mirrors to look at. They give him bubbles and little balls to play with, and he loves all that.'
More: Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with wild penguin conservation work
More: Detroit Zoo announces immersive, 7-acre Discovery Trails project to open in 2026
While still spending most of his time behind the scenes, Atticus has, in fact, made his public debut, to the delight of many zoogoers. Ireland shared when guests might catch a glimpse of the chick, and speculated on what's to come in his next six months.
'He's starting his introductions three times a week, where the public can see him,' she said. 'Every time we have divers in our pool, we bring Atticus out so he can get a little more comfortable with all the other birds in the habitat, so if guests come first thing in the morning on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, they have a chance of seeing him before he goes back in when our dive team is done.
'Eventually, once he is fully molted and has his waterproof features, he will start going out every day and will start increasing that time. He might just be out for a few hours in the morning and start increasing that to where he's out full-time during the day when our keepers are in the building. We see him, in this timeframe, getting in and out of the pool really well.'
Another notable thing about Atticus is his size: At just six months old in February, the chick weighed in at a large-and-in-charge 35.42 pounds – more than either of his parents, and equivalent to the weight of a three- or four-year-old.
'Yeah, he's a big boy,' said Ireland. 'At his heaviest, which was about a week and a half ago, he was over 43 pounds. He's just under 40 pounds right now, which is on the average or a little more than average for kings. But, as soon as he's done molting and starts moving around, he'll start losing weight and become a nice, trim male king penguin.'
Ireland also spoke about how Atticus' birth and study fit into DZS' larger goal of promoting and facilitating penguin conservation globally.
'Anytime that we can raise a penguin in captivity, it really helps us be able to spread that message of what it's like in the wild for penguins – specifically (as pertains to) breeding,' she said. 'A lot of wild penguins' food resource is starting to get depleted because of overfishing and climate change, so we can highlight the troubles that penguins in the wild are starting to have, which is starting to cause a decline in their numbers.
'Everybody's really excited about a king penguin chick, or any penguin chick, so we can really start to highlight the conservation side and what's needed to help protect the wild penguins.'
The Detroit Zoo is located at 8450 W. 10 Mile Rd., Royal Oak. General admission is $27, with a reduced youth and senior rate of $24. To learn more or plan your visit, go to detroitzoo.org.
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo's new baby penguin now viewable: How you can see him
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