Happy Feet's distant cousins.

They are in love.

They are happy.

They are also gay.

And, they are not alone.

Wendell and Cass

On a Monday, little interesting stories add more life to my day. This is one of them.

These two penguins that made headlines in the New York Aquarium a couple of years ago. Wendell and Cass has been together for close to 8 years now. And "neither of them has ever been with anyone else," says their keeper, Stephanie Mitchell. (Aww...)

Among the 22 male and 10 female African black-footed penguins in the aquarium, no one suspected Wendell and Cass were gay when they first bonded. Penguins don't have external sex organs, so visually there's no surefire way to tell whether they are male or female. But over time, people began to wonder.

In all the years they had been together, neither Wendell nor Cass laid an egg. This was unusual because the keepers knew they copulated regularly. They had often seen Wendell submit to Cass, the more dominating of the two. But one day, a keeper saw Wendell on top.

Wendell and Cass are not the only gay penguin couples. Apparently there are many more gay penguins in our zoos than we realise. This is because of the disproportionate male-female ratio.

In another zoo (Central Park Zoo), Roy and Silo - another gay penguin couple, have been together for 4 years.

When they were given an egg to hatch because an inexperienced couple failed to hatch their own egg, Silo and Roy were super excited at the 'opportunity' to become parents. And they took care of the egg really well. It eventually hatched into a chick.

However, their relationship fell apart when Silo fell in love with Scrappy, a female penguin that recently came into the zoo.

Ever since then, Roy was often seen sitting at the edge of the penguin area... alone, staring at the wall.

Sigh... I think 'Happy Feet' aside, this is real penguin drama.