{"id":2494916,"date":"2026-07-09T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2494916"},"modified":"2026-07-09T13:06:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:06:00","slug":"king-charles-and-queen-camilla-give-london-zoo-penguins-a-royal-health-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/king-charles-and-queen-camilla-give-london-zoo-penguins-a-royal-health-check\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles and Queen Camilla give London Zoo penguins a royal health check"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Braving the baking sun, King Charles<\/a> gave a “very well behaved” Humboldt penguin a health check with a stethoscope during a visit to London Zoo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The King, alongside Queen Camilla<\/a>, joined zoo vet Stefan Saverimuttu in Camden on Thursday, where dozens of two-foot-tall penguins<\/a> greeted them. <\/p>\n

Crouching down, His Majesty used a red stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat of a penguin named Lannister, who patiently perched on a rock. <\/p>\n

Queen Camilla<\/a> also participated in the examination, bending down with a blue stethoscope.<\/p>\n

\u201cLannister sounded perfect and Lannister was very well behaved for the King and the Queen,\u201d Mr Saverimuttu said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very endearing,\u201d the King said about the birds.<\/p>\n

Asked how the couple\u2019s veterinary skills had been, the vet said Charles<\/a> and Camilla had taken to it \u201cvery well\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of them were really enthusiastic about the penguins,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cPenguins have a bit of a beak on them so I think if you\u2019ve never met one before, they might be a bit intimidating, but neither the King or the Queen was intimidated in the slightest and they went straight in and gave it a go and they did really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple dressed on theme with their visit, as Charles wore a blue suit and an animal-themed tie and sunglasses while Camilla, carrying a cream parasol, chose a white Fiona Clare dress, adorned with wildlife including elephants and deer.<\/p>\n

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Some 71 Humboldt penguins live at the zoo in Regent\u2019s Park (Jonathan Brady\/PA) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

During the trip, which celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Zoological Society of London<\/a> (ZSL) conservation charity, the couple paused to meet a Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise named Polly and help feed her some snacks.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old tortoise was presented with a watermelon decorated with the number 200 and flowers.<\/p>\n

Using metal tongs, the Queen fed some of the greenery to Polly while the King offered her some leaves by hand.<\/p>\n

Polly largely ignored the King\u2019s offering, prompting Charles to jokingly ask her keeper whether the tortoise was on a \u201cdiet\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\"Charles<\/div>
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Charles and Camilla attempted to capture the penguins\u2019 attention using special laser pointers (PA Wire)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The visit was Charles\u2019 first tour of the zoo as the ZSL\u2019s patron. He visited the attraction for the first time as a one-year-old to see Brumas, a newborn polar bear cub.<\/p>\n

Since 1828, every monarch has been patron of the society.<\/p>\n

The zoo was founded by the ZSL that year in London\u2019s Regent\u2019s Park, becoming the world\u2019s first scientific zoo.<\/p>\n

During the tour, the couple heard about the creation of a new wildlife centre, announced by ZSL to mark the anniversary.<\/p>\n

The centre will be used to investigate diseases in animals, train wildlife vets, track how diseases spread between species and support conservation projects around the world as well as providing new veterinary facilities for the animals at ZSL\u2019s two zoos \u2013 London and Whipsnade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Braving the baking sun, King Charles gave a “very well behaved” Humboldt penguin a health check with a stethoscope during a visit to London Zoo. The King, alongside Queen Camilla, joined zoo vet Stefan Saverimuttu in Camden on Thursday, where dozens of two-foot-tall penguins greeted them. Crouching down, His Majesty used a red stethoscope to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2494917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2494916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/King-Charles-and-Queen-Camilla-give-London-Zoo-penguins-a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2494918,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494916\/revisions\/2494918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2494917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}