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NYTimes
New York Times
25 Dec 2024
Emily Anthes


NextImg:The Animal Celebrities Who Surprised, Soothed and Screamed at Us in 2024

Every year has its breakout stars, and 2024 yielded a bumper crop: Glen Powell, Chappell Roan, Pommel Horse Guy.

But only one had a body that was routinely compared to a potato. She was slippery, she was feisty, she was named after a type of pork meatball. She was, of course, Moo Deng, the pygmy hippo who rocketed to fame so fast that at just 2 months old she inspired a character on “Saturday Night Live.”

She wasn’t the only nonhuman newsmaker this year. Indeed, 2024 was the year that animals seemed to do it all, becoming A-list celebrities, political weapons and cautionary tales. Along the way, they often served as welcome distractions from the messy human world — but also clear reflections of it.

Here is a look at the creatures that broke the internet (and sometimes our hearts) in 2024.

The social media sensations

It’s a tale as old as time: Baby zoo animal is born, baby zoo animal is posted online, baby zoo animal goes viral. This year, an enormous king penguin chick named Pesto — a 50-pound tower of downy brown fluff at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, in Australia — became a textbook case.

ImageA very large, squat penguin chick, which is hairy and brown and almost as large as its sleek, gray-and-white-and-orange elders, in a penguin enclosure in a zoo.
Pesto, a 9-month-old penguin chick seen on Sept. 3, was steadily gaining weight at his home in Sea Life Melbourne with a diet of 25 fish a day.Credit...Sea Life Melbourne, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Image
Moo Deng with her mother, Jona, receiving a bath from Atthapon Nundee, the zookeeper and author of Moo Deng’s viral videos, at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in November.Credit...Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

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