Among the sea of glossy black and white penguins that call a popular Australian aquarium home, one baby bird stands out like a sore thumb.<\/p>\n Chocolatey brown, obscenely fluffy, and towering a head above his own foster parents \u2013 plus weighing more than both combined – is Pesto.<\/p>\n Affectionately dubbed a “fatty”, an “absolute unit”, and a “linebacker”, the chonky chick has shot to viral superstardom and attracted a legion of obsessed fans, including popstar Katy Perry.<\/p>\n Pesto has reached an audience of billions – dominating social media algorithms, securing wall-to-wall breakfast TV coverage in the US and UK, and drawing travellers from around the globe to Melbourne\u2019s Sea Life Aquarium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Born in January weighing only 200g (7oz), the nine-month-old king penguin is now more than a hundred times the size. At a whopping 22.5kg (50lb), he is the biggest chick the aquarium has ever seen.<\/p>\n It is normal for penguins to stack on some “healthy baby chub” after they hatch, the aquarium’s Jacinta Early tells the BBC, but keepers had no idea Pesto would become so immense.<\/p>\n “It’s a combination of nature [and] nurture, really,” the marine biologist explains. <\/p>\n Pesto’s biological father is quite tall, but he’s also been very well looked after by his foster parents Tango and Hudson: “He eclipses them now, which also makes him look comically large.”<\/p>\n Hand-fed several times a day, Ms Early says Pesto\u2019s considerable heft is also partly attributable to his “very healthy appetite” – a gentle way of saying he gobbles up to 30 fish daily.<\/p>\n But she stresses he\u2019s healthy – essentially half fluff – and he\u2019ll soon begin to drop weight naturally.<\/p>\n “If I poked him, my entire finger would completely [disappear] deep in his feathers,\u201d Ms Early says.<\/p>\n “When he does start to fledge, he’ll lose a lot of that baby fluff, and he’ll also lose much of that weight, so he’ll slim down nice and sleek.”<\/p>\n He\u2019s already losing a smattering of his baby feathers, but she says there\u2019s much more to Pesto than his cuddly appearance anyway.<\/p>\n She describes him as a social butterfly who chatters away in a “cute little whistle tone” and loves annoying the adult penguins “like any typical toddler would”.<\/p>\n “He tends to be the first one to kind of say hi [to keepers] and he also does respond to his name.”<\/p>\n “We definitely do have our favourites,” Ms Early says, diplomatically. “[But] Pesto seems to be a little bit in love with all the keepers as well.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even though staff have long been besotted with the chick, seeing the love he\u2019s attracted from the public has been an absurd experience, they say.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a generally busy period of year for the aquarium, amid school holidays, but crowds have been flocking to the penguin exhibit to catch a glimpse of the glorified pom-pom.<\/p>\n Millie Jacoby – a Brit who has lived in Melbourne for the past year – is one such Pesto groupie.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old has visited the penguin twice already and brags that she was a fan before he became an online sensation.<\/p>\n “We walked in and there was just this big, fluffy penguin… and we just kind of fell in love.<\/p>\n “He deserves to be famous.”<\/p>\n Olivia Wilson, who has been managing Pesto\u2019s demanding media schedule for the aquarium, jokes that she\u2019s not sure what’s the bigger drawcard to Melbourne this weekend: Pesto or the Australian Football League grand final – a sporting event taken so seriously that the entire state of Victoria gets a public holiday the day before to celebrate.<\/p>\n “You name a country, and he has had a mention in the media… there are very few places across the globe that haven’t had a bit of Pesto love.”<\/p>\n By her metrics, Pesto has reached an audience of about 5 billion and appears to have dethroned Thailand\u2019s adorably erratic baby pygmy hippo<\/a> as the internet\u2019s favourite animal.<\/p>\n “People are trading him as Bitcoin, which has been unbelievable,” Ms Wilson says.<\/p>\n “Move over Moo Deng, basically.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Sea](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/a1e8\/live\/c972cbd0-7a2f-11ef-8186-b5b5abebbc4e.jpg.webp\")
Sea Life Melbourne<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n