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Same-sex foster parents raising flamingo chick at San Diego Zoo
Two male flamingos are now first time dads after they hatched an egg together at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
The pair had been sitting on a fake egg earlier this year and, after showing off their parenting skills with the fake egg, care specialists decided to give them a real egg, according to the zoo. The chick, born late last month, is now “thriving.”
“The pair has perfected their fatherly duties by alternating brooding responsibilities,” the zoo wrote in a social media post.
The flamingo dads
The two dads are in their 40s, according to the zoo. They’re both lesser flamingos, a species found in sub-Saharan Africa and western India. The chick is also a lesser flamingo.
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
Lesser flamingos grow to be 2.6-2.9 feet tall and grow to weigh 3.3 to 4.4 pounds, according to the zoo. At hatching, a chick is about the size of a tennis ball and has gray down feathers instead of the distinctive pink.
The lesser flamingo foster parents raising the chick were sitting on a nest earlier this year, according to the zoo. Care specialists gave them a fake egg as a way to keep them occupied and stop them from interfering with other nests. The flamingos did such a good job caring for their fake egg that the wildlife specialists decided to give them a real, fertile egg.
The foster dads have been feeding the chick crop “milk,” which comes from the parents’ upper digestive tract.
“Both males and females can feed the chick this way, and even flamingos that are not the parents can act as foster-feeders,” according to the zoo. “The begging calls the hungry chick makes are believed to stimulate the secretion of the milk.”
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
Feeding chicks can actually impact the color of the parents’ feathers. Feeding can drain the color and their plumage will appear pale pink or even white until the chick becomes independent and eats on its own.
The foster dads will start to wean the chick when it’s around two months old.
Birds and their babies
The flamingos aren’t the first to care for fake eggs. An eagle at a Missouri bird sanctuary went viral after he tried to hatch a rock. Vulture dads have hatched eggs together and so have penguin dads.
Earlier this year, two male flamingos at a U.K. zoo —named Curtis and Arthur— hatched a chick. At the time, the zoo said it wasn’t sure how the flamingos had acquired the chick.
“Regarding the same-sex parenting, we aren’t entirely sure how this has come about, although it is a known phenomenon in Chilean flamingos as well as other bird flocks,” Paignton Zoo Curator of Birds Pete Smallbones said. “The most likely scenario is that the egg was abandoned by another couple, so this pair have ‘adopted’ it.”
Bangkok — A bus carrying young students with their teachers caught fire in suburban Bangkok on Tuesday and more than 20 of those on board were feared dead, officials and rescuers said.
The bus was carrying 44 passengers from central Uthai Thani province for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces, Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungruengkit told reporters at the scene.
Videos posted on social media showed the entire bus engulfed in flames with huge plumes of black smoke pouring out as it stood under an overpass. Bodies were still inside hours after the fire.
Chalinee Thirasupa / REUTERS
The students on the bus were reported to be in elementary and junior high school.
Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said officials couldn’t yet confirm the number of fatalities because they hadn’t finished investigating the scene. He said the driver survived but appeared to have fled and couldn’t be found.
Anutin had earlier said 25 were feared dead, but Piyalak Thinkaew, a rescuer of the Ruamkatanyu Foundation told reporters later that two more survivors had been found, reducing the number of those still unaccounted for to 23 – three teachers and 20 students.
Rescuers and officials were able to access the bus hours after the fire was put out. Piyalak said they were still unable to identify the bodies, most of which were found in the middle and back seats, leading them to assume that the fire started at the front of the bus.
Chalinee Thirasupa / REUTERS
Thai media reports and rescuers said the bus was heading to Nonthaburi when the fire started around noon in Pathum Thani province, a northern suburb of the capital.
A rescuer at the scene told Suriya that the fire likely started after one of the tires exploded and the vehicle scraped against a road barrier.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra offered her condolences in a post on social media platform X, saying the government would take care of medical expenses and compensate the victims’ families.
“As a mother, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families,” she said in a social media post on X, according to the Reuters news agency.
The patRangsit Hospital, which is located near the scene, said in a news conference that it admitted three young girls, one of whom suffered burns to the face, mouth and eye.
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