Why is Pesto the penguin so big? Explained

By now, you’ve probably been blessed with pictures and video of Moo Deng, Thailand’s baby pygmy hippo. But there’s more than one baby animal making the social media rounds. Because people are also obsessed with a giant baby penguin named Pesto.

Pesto is a king penguin who lives at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia, and he’s the largest penguin chick the aquarium has ever housed. Born in January 31, 2024, Pesto already weighs a whopping 22 kg, or 48.5 pounds. He’s heavier than both of his parents combined. When you see him hanging out with his parents, he’s already as tall as they are. It’s wild.

Baby Pesto already eats 25 fish every single day—and 24 kg / 53 pounds, more than his body weight, every week. He’s an expensive, special, beautiful boy. He’s also a social media star—Sea Life’s videos of him have garnered 1.9 billion views and counting.

Can Pesto stay big and fluffy forever?

Pesto actually won’t stay so giant forever, sadly. Pesto is certainly a huge baby, but there is also the penguin equivalent of “baby fat” involved. Very soon, Pesto will start shedding his fluffy brown baby feather and start growing adult penguins’ iconic, sleek black-and-white feathers.

As Pesto enters this stage, which coincides with him reaching maturity, Pesto’s growth will stop. Not only that, but in losing all of those baby feathers, Pesto will actually lose weight. Pesto’s caretakers expect his final adult weight to be about 15 kg, or 33 pounds.

But why was Pesto so huge in the first place? The best answer seems to be that genes work in mysterious ways. You know how sometimes two parents with brown eyes can give birth to a blue-eyed baby? Pesto’s surprising size can likely be attributed to that.

Pesto is big for a zoo penguin, but wild king penguins can actually get even bigger. Experts say the weight of an adult king penguin ranges from 9.3 to 18 kg, or 21 to 40 pounds. So Pesto is certainly on the bigger side of that spectrum, but it’s not like Pesto’s size is unheard of for his species.

Still, it’s a huge landmark for the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium. Even though I’ll miss the pairing of Pesto’s fuzzy feathers and his ridiculous size compared to his parents, it will be fascinating to watch Pesto grow up to become that one adult penguin at Sea Life who’s noticeably way bigger than everyone else. He’ll always stand out in the room.