The only thing cuter than seeing a baby penguin chick is coming up with a sweet name for it!
Mushu and Hubert, two African penguins living at Adventure Aquarium in Camden, hatched a baby boy on November 21, and members of the Birds & Mammals team asked AA fans to help name the chick.
They went with a “dragons and sidekicks” theme because Mushu is named after the sidekick from Disney’s Mulan. The parents’ second-ever chick (he joins brother Shubert, born in December 2024) – and the biggest chick born this season – is now named Scrappy, beating out other choices Zero, Flounder and Toothless.
Donation boxes benefitting AZA SAFE African Penguins and The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds were set up around the aquarium before the name was announced today, which is Penguin Awareness Day.
The aquarium also welcomed two new African penguins, Oscar and Duffy, in December.
All three chicks will remain off exhibit until they develop their waterproof feathers, and the weather improves. To check on their status, follow Adventure Aquarium on Instagram.
The African penguin species was reclassified as critically endangered in October 2024 by the International Union of the Conservation of Nature due to habitat loss and environmental changes. African penguins could be functionally extinct by 2035 without continued conservation action. Adventure Aquarium is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and participates in the AZA Species Survival Plan®, which helps ensure healthy, genetically diverse populations in human care.
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