And you thought Marco Polo was a boring game.
When six Magellannic penguins, formerly of Sea World in Aurora, Ohio, were brought to the San Francisco Zoo in November, they somehow convinced the 46 birds already there to join them in a daily frenzy of circle swimming.
The penguins start swimming in circles early in the day and rarely stop until they stagger out of the pool at dusk. “We’ve lost complete control,” said Jane Tollini, the zoo’s penguin keeper. “It’s a free-for-all in here.”
The penguins used to line up for food, but now they just whiz by in the water, getting their food and vitamins on the go as Tollini dispenses it to the passing birds.
“I am kind of like a drive-through restaurant now,” she said. “They see me, see the fish, run past me, grab the fish and keep going.”
Even a lack of water hasn’t kept the penguins from the pool. When the zoo drained it for cleaning, they jumped in anyway and walked around in circles instead.
