Cincinnati Zoo names penguin chick after former Reds player

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - The Cincinnati Zoo’s bird team named one of its baby penguins after a former Cincinnati Reds player on Friday.

The six-week-old African penguin chick will now be known as “Larkin,” in honor of Barry Larkin’s birthday.

The former baseball player is a Cincinnati native and a Moeller High School graduate, according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. After college, he later came back to his hometown and played shortstop for the Reds from 1986-2004.

“There are several Cincinnati Reds fans on the bird team, including me, and I actually lived in the same neighborhood as the Larkins when I was a kid,” Cincinnati Zoo Bird Team Leader Rickey Kinley said. “Our little chick was two weeks old when the City of Cincinnati renamed a street after Barry Larkin, and that gave me the idea to give the penguin his name too.”

According to the zoo, Larkin the penguin had to be hand-raised because he had trouble eating, but is now doing much better after the bird team helped him.

Visitors will be able to see Larkin sometime in May in the African Penguin Point exhibit.