Mum, ‘Shrimp’, and Dad, ‘Charlie’, have embraced their new roles swimmingly.

With the chick showing positive signs in its first few weeks earth side, mum and dad are doing a flippin’ good job.

Tipping the scales at just over 1,200 grams the little one is above average weight for a Little Penguin chick.

The chick is weighed every week to monitor growth and the animal care team is hopeful the gender will be known by early next year.

In the wild, a little penguin’s gender is given away by the size of their beak.

Males tend to have a thicker and longer beak, whilst the females have a shorter thinner beak.

But here at the Zoo our expert animal care team will use blood and feather samples to determine if the chick is a girl or a boy.  

The new arrival joins a colony of 15 Little Penguins cared for at Perth Zoo.

This birth marks an important milestone for the regional breeding program, which aims to boost penguin populations in Western Australia and protect the species’ future by maintaining a healthy, genetically diverse insurance population.

Little Penguins are the smallest of all penguin species and are native to Australia.

But, Western Australian populations are genetically distinct from their east coast counterparts, with unique breeding and moulting seasons!

Visitors will be able to spot the chick in the coming weeks, when it sheds its fluffy down and takes on the sleek appearance of an adult penguin at around 10 weeks old.

With the best chance of a sighting during our FREE Penguin Keeper Talk that runs every day at  10AM!