Experts at Taipei Zoo determined that a female panda named Yuan Yuan was faking signs of pregnancy in order to secure special privileges for the summer, as reported by China Daily.
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Yuan Yuan, who gave birth to her first male cub Yuan Zai in July 2013, was given to Taipei Zoo as a gift from the Chinese Communist Party government in December of 2008, along with her male partner Tuan Tuan. Yuan Yuan’s fecal progesterone concentration was also on the rise.
Yuan Yuan was artificially inseminated on both March 26 and 27 when she was in heat.
A giant panda from Taiwan has been caught faking pregnancy so she could have extra meals and an air conditioned room.
However, when mainland panda experts were called in to perform an ultrasound scan confirming her condition they discovered that Yuan Yuan was not expecting after all, as stated by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
After an artificial insemination in June, the 11-year-old panda started showing signs of pregnancy, which made everyone feel excited, giving her the royal treatment that included her own temperature-controlled room, 24/7 attention, and all the unlimited fruit and fresh bamboo she wanted. But Wu Kongju, an expert of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre, says a few pandas have been able to game the system without the hormonal element present.
Just do a Google Image search for “dumb panda”, or check out all these articles devoted to nothing other than laughing in pandas’ big doofy moon faces.
Pregnant pandas are pampered a lot.
“So a few clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life”.
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As said by a 2010 LiveScience report, scientists “don’t know why pseudo-pregnancies happen, or if they have evolved for an evolutionary goal”.
