The oldest Humboldt penguin in the world has celebrated her 37th birthday with a sprat-acular cake.
Matriarch Spneb marked the occasion with the birthday treat made of ice featuring her favourite fish – sprats.
It was topped with a fluffy toy penguin made by one of her keepers.
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Humboldt penguins normally have a lifespan of 15-to-20 years in the wild.
But Spneb’s keepers say records kept by zoos around the world suggest she is the oldest of her species across the globe, as reported by What’s The Jam.
She was born in 1988 at Birdworld in Surrey and went to Paradise Park, Hayle, Cornwall shortly afterwards.
Becky Waite, one of Spneb’s keepers, said: “She is doing amazingly well for her age.
“We have a colony of 24 Humboldt’s penguins including two chicks, and although she’s an elderly penguin, she continues to have a good appetite.
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“She likes to keep an eye on all the youngsters while looking out of her box and her favourite companion is one of the older males.”
Spneb’s name is a fusion of the two types of medication she was given when she developed a fungal disease called Aspergillosis in 2007.
Her name consists of a drug ‘Sp’ and a nebuliser ‘neb’.
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It took four months to treat her but apart from some minor scaring to her lungs she recovered well.
There are 18 species of penguin, all ideally adapted to life in water.
They have streamlined bodies, tightly packed waterproof feathers and special digestion.
They also have heavy bones to help them dive, and a layer of blubber for warmth. Flightless and ungainly on land, they reach great speeds underwater.
Their tongues are covered in spines to grip slippery fish.
Some penguins make a small nest of sticks, others use burrows.
The Humboldt’s carefully choose and arrange pebbles of just the right size before laying two white eggs.
This species is endangered in the wild partly due to human pollution.
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