A celebrated Australian penguin famous for raising chicks as part of an unlikely same-sex couple has died, a Sydney aquarium said.
Male gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic caught the attention of zookeepers, and then the world, when they built a nest of pebbles together in 2018.
They were eventually given live eggs to incubate from other penguin couples, hatching chick Sphengic in 2018 and Clancy two years later.
Sea Life Aquarium said Sphen - the older partner in the "same-sex" penguin "power couple" - had died just shy of turning 12, considered a long life in captivity.
Staff took Magic to see Sphen's body so he could understand that he would not be coming home. When he reached Sphen, Magic immediately started singing, followed shortly afterwards by the other 45 penguins in the colony.
Gentoo penguins can make sounds ranging from honks to brays which their partners can usually identify from the voices of other penguins in the colony.
"Sphen and Magic's love story captivated the world and it's been an honour to welcome local and international fans," said Rachel Dilly, general manager at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium.
"The team's focus is now on Magic, who will soon prepare for his first breeding season without Sphen."
Sphen and Magic were adopted as gay icons in Australia and further abroad, inspiring a float at the Sydney Mardi Gras parade and featuring in the Netflix sitcom Atypical.
But they also had their critics, with some in conservative circles saying the penguins were unwittingly being used to push a political agenda.
Unlike many mammal species, male and female penguins take on the same parenting roles, and share parental duties 50-50.
Same-sex couples between both males and females are not unheard of, although they are often short-lived in the wild.
It was not the first time same-sex penguin couples had adopted eggs in captivity, with a handful of zoos worldwide reporting similar cases.
In 2009, two male penguins - Z and Vielpunkt - successfully hatched and reared a chick that was rejected by its heterosexual parents at a zoo in Berlin.
Before them came Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at a zoo in New York who were spotted frequently trying to mate with each other.
