A second cub followed at 3:44 a.m. EDT, according to zoo staff. The first cub weighed 6.6 ounces (187.7 grams), and its slightly younger twin weighed 4 ounces (115 g).
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The Toronto Zoo has announced the first-ever giant pandas born in Canada – twins that made their way into the world this morning.
The two newborns, however, are very vulnerable and the coming days-which they will spend mostly in an incubator under observation by Canadian and Chinese panda experts-will be “critical to their survival”. As the maternity area of the giant panda house is not visible to the public, Toronto Zoo staff will endeavor to provide regular updates on their progress.
The father of the cubs could be one of three pandas, including Da Mao, after Er Shun underwent two artificial insemination procedures in May, the zoo said. The animals’ handlers do not yet know the cubs’ sex, and it may take several months before that can be confirmed.
Exton-Parder said the pandas’ enclosure is in the design phase right now and she’s unsure when construction would begin, but the zoo has always planned for a little wiggle room in case the panda family in Toronto grew. It looks quite a bit easier for panda mama to deliver a cub the size of a stick of butter than for our species’ own super-brains to push their way into the light of this world. They are pink in colour with short sparse white hair, and are one-900th the size of their mother. Reproductive scientists used sperm collected from Da Mao, as well as frozen sperm from two giant pandas living in China.
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More darling pandas can be found at Toronto Zoo’s YouTube account.
