Wotan, the God of Healing and Battle

Our sponsors get to give the penguin they support a name of their choice and this one was named after the Germanic god Wotan, the god for healing, death, royalty, knowledge, battle and poetry. The Romans thought that Mercury was the closest equivalent god in their line-up and he is also known as Odin (or indeed in old-English Woden). 
Germanic legend has it that Wotan's wife is called Frigg. Our Wotan's wife eloped and found a new mate. So Wotan was a bit lonely this summer - although not for lack of trying. There were just no girls out there. 

In early February he was found with a wound on his hip and had a stint in rehab. That's when our kind sponsors stepped in and paid for his convalescence. He was healed and ready to moult (an impressive 8.1kg) so he was parked back near his home in the colony and we kept an eye on him. 
Almost 3 weeks later he was discovered hanging out with Mrs 80 (so named after her box number) who was also moulting but Wotan was not looking so good, a bit too thin for his stage of the moult (it is likely that his injuries cost him more energy during the moult, so he lost more weight than he would have otherwise). So he was collected up again and had a little top up for 5 days to get him over the last bit of moulting. 
The photo shows him in all his post-moult glory, weighing 5.9kg, ready to seriously chase Mrs 80 again and pry her away from Mr 80 - and then make her the new Mrs Wotan!! Let there be a happy ending with eggs in September!