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Watch penguins play iPad games like tiny, cute, flightless people

Watch penguins play iPad games like tiny, cute, flightless people

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Even a quick YouTube search offers up some hard evidence that cats love iPads, but who would have thought penguins felt the same way? A new video (below) from Cool Hunting shows a group of Magellanic penguins at California's Aquarium of the Pacific getting plenty involved with the iPad’s Game for Cats app, with resident aviculturist Sara Mandel explaining that the game helps keep the penguins active and healthy.

"Newsom and Jeremy became obsessed with it."

"I was pretty new to the position so I decided, ‘I wonder if they’ll play with this game?’" explains Mandel in the video. "And I put it down and he just starting biting it and messing with it. And then [penguins] Newsom and Jeremy became obsessed with it. And that was actually the year that he [nearby penguin] was born, so I must have done something right because we got Anderson and Heidi out of it."

So not only do penguins have excellent names, but they also love playing with iPads to keep in peak physical condition. Mandel says the distraction the device provides even gives her a perfect opportunity to check on the animals’ health. "I can even go a step further and kind of look at him a little bit, kind of mess with his flipper," she explains. "Maybe something I wouldn’t be able to do if he wasn’t already kind of hanging out with this iPad." Parents with gaming-obsessed teens take note: wait until your offspring is in the middle of a team deathmatch before checking on their flippers.