If you thought keeping track of your friends’ shifting relationship statuses was confusing, try making sense of the love lives of aquarium penguins. To help them better understand the complex, tangled web of penguin relationships, Tokyo’s Sumida Aquarium and Kyoto Aquarium have created flowcharts documenting the penguin romances of 2020.
Photo: Kyoto Aquarium
To the layman, the flowcharts might appear more complex than the documents on a rocket scientist’s desk. But color-coded lines and symbols make it easy for aquarium staff to track the various penguin romances happening under their very noses. Red hearts, for example, signify couples, while purple lines with question marks indicate more complicated relationships. A blue, broken heart points to an affair, yellow lines mean friendship, and green connects enemies.
