Roy and Silo rocketed to fame as the "gay penguins" of New York's Central Park Zoo. Zookeepers first witnessed them exhibiting mating behaviors in 1998. In 1999, the pair attempted to hatch a rock, which inspired zookeepers to give them an egg that another couple could not hatch.
Roy and Silo successfully incubated the egg and hatched a chick that the zoo named Tango. Their story inspired the children's book And Tango Makes Three. According to the American Library Association, And Tango Makes Three is one of the most banned children's books in the United States because it depicts a same-sex relationship.[1]
This, however, is not where the story ends.
In May 2004, the couple was kicked out of their nest by a more aggressive pair of penguins, and Roy and Silo started to drift apart. Silo ended up bonding with another penguin named Scrappy, a female penguin brought to the zoo in 2002.[2]