Aquarium Welcomes Admiral Fancy Pants

The two-year-old Magellanic Penguin has joined the June Keyes Penguin Habitat at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Your name, it is often said, says a lot about you, in terms of your quirks, your personality, and what your particular interests or life path might be.

What, then, to make of Admiral Fancy Pants? There's much to this moniker, so much so that it feels as though a team of naming experts could be brought in and not reach a definitive, put-it-on-the-books conclusion.

So let us clue you in: Admiral Fancy Pants, who lives in Long Beach, is about yeah tall — picture someone holding a hand a couple of feet of the ground — and he adores waddling, splashing about, preening his feathers, occasionally molting, and frequently dining upon delicious fish.

He is, in fact, a Magellanic Penguin, the newest of the colony at the Aquarium of the Pacific's June Keyes Penguin Habitat.

AFP, for short, penguin-strutted into his new home on March 15, but not without some important back story: The two-year-old male penguin has taken up residence at the aquarium as part of the "national conservation effort" overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Meaning that his keepers are fervently hoping that, one day soon, there might be new chicks at the Long Beach aquatic institution who'll call Admiral Fancy Pants their dad.

Newsome, another penguin seen at the Aquarium of the Pacific habitat, has moved onto a new location, also a part of the same conservation program.

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There are some 20 penguins in the habitat, and if you've visited it before, you know they love to twirl beneath the waves, take breaks on the shore, and exhibit a lovable amount of curiosity.

Surely Admiral Fancy Pants is fitting right into the splashy scene. 

There's other news from another splashy scene at the aquarium, one that isn't too far from the penguins' pad. Shelby, a senior harbor seal who has lived at the Long Beach destination since she was 3, marked her 21st birthday on Wednesday, March 22.

The comically sweet seal, of course, had at treat-packed party, the kind of tasty to-do that befits barky, flipper-famous celeb.

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