When Moo Deng — a feisty, adorable pygmy hippopotamus — and Pesto — a massive, waddling King penguin chick — both became famous overnight, social media users immediately began pitting the two against each other.
The fights bordered on silly (“Is one overshadowing the other?”) and impossible to parse (“Who is cuter?”), but where others saw competition, one TikTok user saw an opportunity.
“Many people do not know this,” said TikTok creator @indipine. “But when Moo Deng arrived onto the scene, alongside hot new bombshell Prince Pesto the Penguin — who also waddled into the villa around the same time — something incredibly powerful began to form.”
These animals are not enemies, Indy explained, they are “colleagues.”
“Yes, it’s what you’re all thinking,” Indy said. “The Knights of the Rotund Table.”
Indy said that “the prophecy of this cross cultural cutie committee” was born “many moons ago” when a third viral baby animal — Indy’s personal favorite, the giant panda Hua Hua — sat at a round table in her pen at the Chengdu Research Base with three “bamboo swords” before her.
Now, Indy said, an “elite” team is taking shape, à la “King Arthur And His Knights of the Round Table.”
“Personally, I would say Hua Hua is the leader, due to her years of experience and just general commitment to her craft of being a professional baby,” Indy said. “So she is the ‘King Art-Hua’ in this story.
“Pesto is definitely Merlin and I think Moo Deng is Lancelot,” she added. “That’s just the vibes I get here.”
At the end of the video, Indy asked viewers to stay tuned for more famous baby animals to join “the Rotund Table,” as King Arthur had 25 Knights by his side — and “Fat Bear” week was fast approaching.
Overnight, Indy’s video skyrocketed to over 2 million views and 500,000 likes as her “Knights of the Rotund Table” meme took the internet by storm, spilling over from TikTok onto Threads and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Indy has long been an “accidental Panda TikToker,” through sharing her love for Hua Hua, who she calls “the ‘It Girl’ of the panda-verse.” But she has been blown away by the remarkable response to the “Knights of the Rotund Table.”
“Things are very stressful in the world news cycle right now, and I think appreciating the beauty and cuteness of animals and nature can be a welcome break and very therapeutic for a lot of people,” Indy told Good Good Good.
“It’s also just a lot of fun to imagine all these animals, from all over the globe, coming together to sit at the medieval table dressed as Knights.”
Every day, the “Rotund Table” makes way for new knights from around the world, like Luna the sea otter, Molé the sloth, and Tehya the black bear. And Indy always has a comparative Arthurian legend on hand for each of them (Tehya is Sir Gawain, obviously, due to her “honorable” and “loyal” nature) and personally draws them in regal attire.
Each time voting opens the online poll receives more and more engagement, with some contenders — like last minute addition, Biscuits the seal — getting upwards of 21,000 votes on Day 3.
Now, it’s at a point where the entire poll receives over 250,000 votes in a single day.
“I was so shocked!” Indy said. “I have been so excited about I’ve barely slept this week because I just want to keep checking what everyone is saying.”
It does not escape Indy that all of the baby animals that have joined the “Rotund Table” are endangered, threatened, or vulnerable species on the decline. That’s why she started featuring wildlife sanctuaries, rescues, and nonprofits in her daily poll.
“A lot of these sanctuaries rely on donations and fundraising, so even just pushing people their way towards their accounts can be helpful because then it allows people to meet the specific animals at different centers and get to know their personalities more, which can help people turn into life long donators,” Indy said.
“And I think making the animals into little characters in a story makes people so much more attached to them,” she added.
So far, all of the Knights at the “Rotund Table” are animals that live in zoos, wildlife centers, and rescue societies around the globe. When it comes to the role that zoos play in conservation, Indy admits that it’s “quite a complex conversation.”
“Although many zoos can be underfunded and clear cash grabs that do not benefit the animals, many sanctuaries and conservation programs can also be lumped in with them and labeled ‘bad’ just because the animals are in captivity,” Indy said.
“The reality is, quite a few species, particularly endangered and protected ones, require human intervention and care in order to keep the species thriving, and often a commercial element (e.g. visitors) is needed to fund such programs.”
“So I think the main thing I want people to take away is to support people and organizations that love and care for animals, encourage others to appreciate and protect nature and it’s wildlife,” Indy continued. “And to indulge in joyful, cute things like the idea of a bunch of baby animals around a round table dressed as Knights.”
As for the size of the “Rotund Table”? Indy isn’t sure if she can bring herself to stop at 25.
“I actually think I’ll have to make the table bigger because there’s too many animals to pick from,” Indy joked. “Thankfully in literature, Arthur’s Knights actually range from around 25 to 3,000 so I guess I can be quite lenient with it!”
Below are all of the Knights’ wildlife sanctuaries that Indy is currently promoting through the online “Knights of the Rotund Table” poll:
Here is a list of Knights of the Rotund Table (Good Good Good will update as it grows!)
Header images via Indy @indipine / TikTok