Viral Melbourne penguin Pesto finds love with Pudding just in time for Valentine’s Day

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Pesto, the Melbourne penguin that went viral last year, has found love just in time for Valentine's Day. Now fully grown and having shed its fluffy chick feathers, Pesto has paired up with a special companion—another young penguin named Pudding.

Transcript

00:00From nearly 25kg of brown fluff and fat as a 10 month old, to now, Pesto has matured.

00:11No longer does he follow his parents everywhere, it's pudding he now adores.

00:16Pudding is Pesto's love interest at the moment.

00:20They are always being caught flirting and canoodling.

00:24Pesto's girth, when he weighed as much as his parents combined, made him a viral sensation.

00:32He was the biggest King Penguin chick Melbourne's Sea Life Aquarium had ever seen, attendance

00:37jumped 30% and visitors in 2025 are still looking for him.

00:41I've seen him on the news when he was born.

00:43It's that fat baby penguin.

00:45He's adorable.

00:46He had his birthday just recently.

00:50Those celebrations included rainbow pebbles and fish cake and it was then that keen watchers

00:55may have noticed some Pesto pudding canoodling, though neither of them are currently old enough

01:01to successfully breed.

01:02It's necks like intertwined over each other, it's little nib nibs on the head, like little

01:08groomings, trying to climb on top of each other, just following each other around.

01:14There are no new chicks in this colony of 50-60 penguins this year, that means Pesto

01:19remains the youngest penguin in this colony for at least another 12 months, but in a year

01:24or two he'll be mature enough to perhaps start his own family and be a penguin papa himself.

01:29Watch this space, he might still be a thing in two years.

01:32Pesto currently weighs 15 kilograms, which is still a bit bigger than average.

01:36Keepers say he may put on some weight again, but nothing like when he was a chick.

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