Baby Pesto is a nine-month-old king penguin who has taken the internet by storm by being huge and already grown taller than his parents. He’s bigger, in fact, than most of the other penguins in the zoo, but stands out because he still has all of his baby down instead of the white, black, and orange feathers of the adults.
Following the viral fame of Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo, Pesto is the latest zoo animal to capture the hearts and minds of the people, but this time for being surprisingly large instead of shockingly small.
Meet Baby Pesto
Pesto was born on January 30, 2024, to parents Hudson and Tango at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia. Nine months later, he has outgrown his parents (literally), currently weighs 21 kg, and is over three feet tall, which is pretty hefty even for this second-largest species of penguin on Earth. According to zoo staff, he eats around 25 fish per day.
“He’s officially the largest chick SEA LIFE Melbourne has ever seen, making him a huge hit with guests and fans around the world,” the aquarium website reads.
Part of the reason Baby Pesto looks like such a tank of a penguin is because of his fluffy baby feathers, which are brown in color and designed to protect from the cold until the little ones can start going in the water. Once this happens, the adult feathers will start to come in, so enjoy Pesto as he is now while you can.
New baby animal meme time
Like Moo Deng before him, Baby Pesto is getting the meme treatment on social media sites all across the world because everyone loves baby animals with personality. Instead of being tiny and chaotic, Pesto was singled out for just being the biggest baby, which naturally taps into the mindset of many chronically online individuals.
Pesto has been widely declared an “absolute unit,” which is one of the funniest things you can call a baby. On September 14, TikTok user @cassssowary posted a clip of aquarium footage of Pesto with an adult king penguin, possibly one of his parents, dubbed over with the audio of CoCo saying, “I just a baby” when her mom is trying to get her to behave.
This video spread to Twitter and became an instant hit, with many users there reposting the clip while expressing their strong feelings about the penguin chick. Other TikTok videos have meme'd Pesto with relatable captions and pairing footage of him with popular songs.
Baby Pesto meets Moo Deng
Not really, but wouldn’t that be the best thing to ever happen to any of us?
What did happen is that because Moo Deng’s popularity is still going strong, the two baby animals are being compared to one another online, and one is often referenced against the other in social media posts. It wasn’t long before they were appearing in edited images and videos together.
On September 25, TikToker @gentlebl0ke posted a video using green screen footage of both Baby Pesto and Moo Deng to create a Godzilla vs. type scene in which the babies are lumbering behind skyscrapers and appear to be squaring up for a fight. Moo Deng eats a helicopter. It’s fantastic.
Baby Pesto meme examples
Related memes:
- Just 29 iconic Moo Deng the hippo memes
- Teen petitions Dublin Zoo to name baby gorilla Harambe Jr.
- The Sad Penguin meme from ‘Toy Story 2’ is having a renaissance
- R.I.P. Club Penguin, popular kids’ social network and meme goldmine
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