They did not just have an apparently healthy pair of twins, born on Saturday night to Mei Xiang. It says pandas give birth to twins about 50 percent of the time, but this is only the third time a giant panda living in the United States has given birth to twins.
Advertisement
The zoo’s current pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, the parents of both Bao Bao and Tai Shan, arrived in 2000. Bao Bao marked her second birthday on Sunday.
“Upon exam, this cub is vocalizing well and appears strong”, the National Zoo said in a Facebook video of the new cub wiggling and squealing. However, she lost at least two other cubs, as one was stillborn in 2013 and the other lived for just a mere six days in 2012.
In more than three decades of trying to breed pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, there has been plenty of heartbreak.
One cub was placed in an incubator in line with protocol when twins are born. Laurie Thompson, a panda biologist, explained that Mei Xiang has struggled when pocking up the cubs on her own that is why they will take out the cubs as soon as they can see an opportunity.
Panda keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo will continue performing these delicate swaps as long as it’s needed and as long as Mei Xiang lets them. He added that the cubs need constant feeding to add calories as fuel and heat in their bodies. The team is swapping each cub with the mother Mei Xiang, allowing each to nurse, while the other is bottle-fed and kept warm in an incubator.
Zoo officials said that the few weeks following the birth would be critical for their survival. “Until the cubs are both out walking around, acting normal, being a panda, that’s probably when we’ll exhale”. These cubs, born this year, made their grand public debut on August 21 in this adorable photo-shoot. Fans who want to see the newest pandas will have to try to catch a glimpse of them on the zoo’s online panda cameras. The National Zoo in Washington says its adult female panda has had twins.
The tiny cubs will also be given panda formula, which is a mixture of water, human baby formula and puppy formula. The pandas belong to China as do any cubs they have. Their big sister, Bao Bao, turned two on Sunday.
The zoo’s first pair of pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were a gift from China following President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to the country.
Advertisement
The cubs’ birth isn’t the only event being celebrated at the zoo this weekend. This time, she was artificially inseminated with semen from Tian Tian and another panda in China that was determined to be a good genetic match. She will stay at the zoo until she is four years old when she will return to China.
