Young penguin with a ’homeric’ father

Among the nearly twenty different species of penguins, we exhibit the African penguins in our Zoo. This is an endangered species, so the successful captive breeding of African penguins is not just a happy thing, but very important for species conservation as well. They have been breeding regularly in Budapest Zoo for decades.

About Peti, although a boy name was given but we have not been actually knowing his/her gender yet. This cannot be determined by looking at penguins. When Peti becomes an adult, a laboratory examination of the sample taken from the plumage will of course reveal his/her sex. But in our zoo, it is a custom for penguins to be named at a young age. Since the name Péter has a female counterpart (Petra), it can be adjusted if it happens to be female.  In fact, Peti’s mother, a female also hatched in our Zoo in 2018, was originally named Augustus, which of course can also be used in the female form (Augusta).

The father’s name is Eumée, which may require some explanation. This is the French form of the name Eumaeus, whose original bearer is known from ancient Greek mythology as a servant of Odysseus the Cunning. Now Eumée came to us from the Nausicaá Centre National de la Mer, a very prestigious public aquarium in France, and the white-armed Nausicaa is also an important character in the Odyssey. So the name of the center and the daddy penguin born there are both Homeric.