As in the past, I bring you a tale of gay, monogamous penguins:

Harry and Pepper could be the poster boys for the phrase “opposites attract.” Harry is a social butterfly and loves attention. Pepper, on the other hand, prefers to be left alone.

The two do share a love of swimming and eating fish, mostly herring and capelin. For two years the 5-year-old Magellanic penguins have been lovebirds, attached at the wing, at the San Francisco Zoo…

“They’ve been boyfriends for a long time,” said their former keeper, Jane Tollini, who left the zoo after 24 years – 19 with the penguins – in 2005.

Early on, Tollini said, the two penguins’ personalities – and dislike of their own kind – were evident. So was the fact they were “different” from their penguin peers.

“Pepper came from a very strange family. He didn’t fit in with all the other penguins,” she said. “Harry is kind of social. He liked people more than the other penguins.”

…Pepper, tagged number 207, also has a “huge beak compared to his body size,” said Brown. As for Harry, he prefers to eat on land and is recognizable by the large white spot at the base of his tail.

Harry, tagged number 201, loves to visit with the zoo’s human guests. But he had trouble finding a home, or burrow, with the other penguins. He settled on a planter box close to the spot where the keepers feed the birds. His home was away from the colony and a short waddle away from the dinner table.

“It was the best of both worlds,” said Tollini.

As for Pepper, he soon took notice of Harry’s secluded spot and decided to move in.

“Pepper said, ‘This is great. No one will bother me,’” she said.