Officials said 17-year-old Mei Xiang picked up the first cub soon after she gave birth.
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The National Zoo in Washington, D.C.is one of four zoos in the country to have pandas on loan from China.
It is expected to be many months before any surviving panda babies make their public debuts. They will perform a neonatal exam on the cub when they’re able to retrieve it, which could take a few days.
Mei Xiang gave birth at 5:34 p.m. (21.34 GMT) after her water broke about an hour beforehand, zoo officials said.
It is not yet known whether they are male or female and nor do keepers know who the father is.
Earlier Saturday afternoon, the zoo said a large number of viewers seeking to watch the panda’s birth caused overload to its online live feed. Laurie Thompson, the zoo’s giant panda biologist, said the twins won’t be socialized with Bao Bao because at her age she would normally be separated from her mother and not involved with the twins.
A first tiny cub – pink, hairless and only about the size of an adult mouse – was born at 5.35pm and Mei Xiang reacted by tenderly picking her new cub up. Her first cub is Tai Shan, which was born in 2005 and is now in China.
A Panda Cam was placed on her enclosure but crashed within seconds of the birth due to the overwhelming volume of interest.
The pregnancy was the result of artificial insemination in April with frozen semen from Hui Hui, a Chinese giant panda. This is only the third time a giant panda living in the United States has given birth to twins.
“This is still a very fragile time for this cub”, he said of the first arrival, which chief veterinarian Don Neiffer said was showing healthy signs, including vocalising. “Everybody’s extremely happy”, Pamela Baker-Masson, the zoo’s spokeswoman, said.
Americans, it turns out, just love the cuddly-looking creatures and want to watch them for hours on their computer screens. The Smithsonian said a newborn cub weighs three to five ounces and is about the size of a stick of butter. The zoo says it will alternately swap the cubs, allowing one time to nurse and spend time with Mei Xiang while the other is bottle fed.
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After four years, any pandas born at the National Zoo are sent back to China.
