Denver ZooWhat do you get when you mix NSYNC with Queen? Probably a very strange combination of pop rock which, to be quite honest, I’d be fully here for.
When you mix Freddie Mercury and Lance Bass though, you apparently get two gay flamingos who are madly in love. Well, if you’re at Denver Zoo that is.
The Colorado zoo houses the two same-sex birds and say they have been a couple for a total of five years, which is no small feat considering NSYNC only lasted seven.
PALance, a Chilean flamingo, and Freddie, an American flamingo from the Dominican Republic, apparently perform courtship rituals such as ‘head flagging,’ CNN reports.
Freddie arrived at the Denver Zoo in 1978, while Lance hatched there in 2001. Before the two coupled, Freddie was paired with a female American flamingo.
On Tuesday (June 11), four days before the start of Denver PrideFest celebrating the city’s LGBTQ community, Denver Zoo shared a post on Facebook regarding the two love birds.
Did you know that Denver Zoo is home to a same sex flamingo couple? Chilean flamingo Lance Bass and American flamingo…
Posted by Denver Zoo on Tuesday, 11 June 2019
The zoo announced the exciting news, informing their followers that while they won’t be able to have a chick of their own, they will be able to act as surrogate parents.
The post read:
Did you know that Denver Zoo is home to a same sex flamingo couple? Chilean flamingo Lance Bass and American flamingo Freddie Mercury have paired up for several years.
While these two males won’t be able to have a chick of their own, they are able to act as surrogate parents if a breeding pair is unable to raise their chick for any reason. #Pride #ZooForAll #Flamingos
In the meantime, Mary Jo Willis, a bird expert at Denver Zoo, said the couple has been getting parenting practice by incubating a ‘dummy’ egg. According to Willis, Freddie and Lance live in a nest mount they built on a communal island.
GettyFor those wondering how the two flamingos came to fall in love with each other, the zoo clarified this in the comments section.
They wrote:
We manage our flock in a way that gives them infinite choice, in that they can wander around Flamingo Island, build nests, choose who the socialize with, so it’s pretty special that Lance and Freddie chose each other.
Right, this is it guys. We’ve already found the best love story of 2019 so everybody else can give up and go home now.
Congratulations to the happy couple.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).