Galveston Island's Moody Gardens revealed a new addition to its penguin colony on Feb. 12.
The small king penguin chick hatched a few weeks ago, during the January winter storm, with just a little bit of fuzz on its head. The baby penguin was born to parents Watt and Astro, who are descendants of the 100 king penguin eggs that Moody Gardens originally collected on South Georgia Island — located approximately between South America and Antarctica — in 1998 and brought back to Galveston.
With the new addition, Moody Gardens has 106 penguins across seven different species.
Janie Konetski, a penguin biologist at Moody Gardens, said the king penguins are typically namedafter important places, people, or events, such as Houston, Orbit, Everest and Titanic.
"It’s very regal, very epicnames for our king penguins since it kind of matches the way that they look," Konetski said.
However, the baby penguin hasn't been named yet, as staff at Moody Gardens usually wait until they know the sex of the birds before naming them. In a few weeks, the staff will conduct a DNA test to determine if the chick is a male or female.
The chick is also not quite ready to join the other penguins in the aquarium.
For now, the chick is being cared for by its parents in a quiet holding area at Moody Gardens. Staff will continue to keep the chick in the holding area until it is able to start walking around, Konetski said.
Konetski said the chick will be fully grown when it’s about seven months old, but will not be able to swim until it's about 11- or 12-months-old.
"I would not expect the chick out on the main exhibit with everybody else for a little over a year from the hatch date, which was January 26th," Konetski said.
The chick is the first king penguin to hatch at Moody Gardens since 2024. As of Feb. 12, the baby penguin had grown to weigh 1,076 grams compared to its birth weight, which was 216 grams.
Copyright 2026 Houston Public Media News 88.7