Two years after seven Humboldt penguins made the Byculla Zoo here their home, the family now has a new member, a chick, the first to be born in the country, an official said today. The chick hatched out of the egg at the civic-run zoo around 8 pm yesterday, he said. "The chick appeared to be active and its mother 'Flipper' was trying to feed it," the zoo's director, Dr Sanjay Tripathi, said.

It is the first penguin to be born in the country, an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. Flipper had laid a single egg on July 5. The incubation period is generally 40 days, Tripathi said. 'Molt', the youngest of the seven penguins in the zoo, and Flipper, who is the oldest of the lot, have been a couple for a while, he said.