Vienna, Austria - September 18, 2025 Schönbrunn Zoo is celebrating the arrival of a double batch of king penguin chicks. Two pairs of penguins hatched one chick each in July, giving staff a rare glimpse of the young birds with their soft brown down, which sets them apart from their sleek, water-ready parents. Unlike adult penguins, the chicks have not yet entered the water. They will develop water-repellent feathers at around ten months old. In king penguins, both parents take turns incubating a single egg in a fold of the abdomen for approximately 50 days, making successful breeding a delicate process. “King penguins in the wild raise a maximum of two chicks in three years, as they rely on their parents for about a year. With us, they successfully raise offspring every year because, at a certain point, we supplement their diet with fish, thus supporting the parents in the energetically demanding rearing process,” explained zoo director Dr. Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck. In their natural subantarctic habitat, king penguins nest on flat, ice-free beaches, which allows parents easy access to the sea where they hunt fish and squid. As with all penguins, the chicks are fed pre-digested food by their parents. “King penguins are the second largest penguin species after emperor penguins and are often confused with them at first glance. However, parts of the beak, head, and throat are more brightly colored in king penguins than in emperor penguins,” said Rupert Kainradl, MSc, zoological curator at the zoo. The chicks’ brown down also helps distinguish them from emperor penguin chicks, whose coloring is different.