Chester Zoo is celebrating after a same-sex penguin couple hatched their adopted chick in what zookeepers hailed as a ‘bumper year’ for the threatened species. Gay ‘lovebirds’ Scampi and Flounder brought the Humboldt hatchling into the world in April and have spent the first few weeks nested in their burrow.

A rare chick has been hatched and raised by a same-sex penguin couple at Chester Zoo. The Humboldt chick is one of 10 to have hatched at the zoo, in what it described as a "bumper year for penguins". Scampi and Flounder, a pair of male penguins, "stepped in to help raise one of two eggs laid by another penguin pair, Wotsit and Peach", the zoo said.