It has been more than 20 years since the first gay couple adopted children in Britain but flamingos have now caught up on the practice.
Chilean flamingo couple Curtis and Arthur have been celebrated as trailblazers after becoming the first male flamingo pair to have adopted a chick on British soil.
Although zoo staff said they were unsure how two males hatched an egg, suggesting that the most likely explanation was that it had been abandoned by another couple.
Pete Smallbones, Curator of Birds at Paignton Zoo in Devon said Curtis and Arthur are a new couple at the lagoon and are raising the chick together.
He said: 'Regarding the same-sex parenting, we aren't entirely sure how this has come about, although it is a known phenomenon in Chilean flamingos as well as other bird flocks.
Chilean flamingo couple Curtis and Arthur have been celebrated as trailblazers after becoming the first male flamingo pair to have adopted a chick on British soil
Although zoo staff said they were unsure how two males hatched an egg, suggesting that the most likely explanation was that it had been abandoned by another couple
Zookeepers think the most likely scenario is that the egg was abandoned by another couple, so the pair have adopted it
'The most likely scenario is that the egg was abandoned by another couple, so this pair have "adopted" it.'
Although there is no evidence that the couple have a sexual relationship the species has been embraced as a mascot by some in the gay community.
Users of Twitter/X celebrated the flamingo adoption. Josh Luke Davis, a gay natural history writer, wrote with a love heart emoji that Curtis and Arthur as 'gay flamingos are raising a chick in Paignton Zoo'.
The newly hatched chick was the result of 'love lagoon', an initiative named after the reality TV show Love Island, to document flamingos as they paired up over the summer.
The zoo has 51 flamingos and the public were allowed to name them in a social media campaign.
Other flamingo couples that have hatched chicks include Florence and Flame, Frenchie and Del and Flossie and Lando.
Josh Luke Davis, a gay natural history writer, wrote with joy about the flamingo relationship
The newly hatched chick was the result of 'love lagoon', an initiative named after the reality TV show Love Island, to document flamingos as they paired up over the summer
The success of the breeding programme is a testament to Paignton Zoo's commitment to the conservation of this Near Threatened species
The success of the breeding programme is a testament to Paignton Zoo's commitment to the conservation of this Near Threatened species.
Mr Smallbones added: 'We are pleased at the success of this year's breeding programme so far.
'It's a testament to the skill and hard work put in by the Bird Team and we are hopeful that we may see more eggs hatch over the coming days and weeks..'
It is the first time the zoo has had chicks since 2018.
Flamingo eggs hatch after a period of approximately 28 days, where they are incubated on mud pile nests by both parents.
The chicks, covered in grey, downy feathers, can appear quite different from their adult counterparts.
While there are currently only a handful of chicks on the island, there are still plenty of eggs incubating.
Chilean flamingos are native to South America, inhabiting brackish or alkaline shallow lakes across various countries.
The first human gay couple to adopt children in Britain, Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow.They had twins born to a surrogate mother in 1999 and they were the first same-sex couple to win the legal right to be named on a birth certificate as parents
Unfortunately, this species is declining in the wild due to a number of factors, including egg-harvesting, disturbance by tourism, and habitat degradation due to mining.
Curtis and Arthur follow in the footsteps of the first human gay couple to adopt children in Britain, Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow.
They had twins born to a surrogate mother in 1999 and they were the first same-sex couple to win the legal right to be named on a birth certificate as parents.
But same-sex animal parenting is awell-documented and witnessed phenomenon with animals in captivity.
In 2022, it was reported that a pair of male Humboldt penguins from New York, became the first same-sex penguin parents at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse.
The phenomenon has also been seen in 2017 when a pair of male griffon vultures successfully hatched an abandoned egg that other vultures would not care for at the Artis zoo in Amsterdam.
And on theOahu island of Hawaii, it was reported that 31 per cent of pairings of Laysan albatrosses were made up of two unrelated females who are known to raise chicks together.
