Giant panda Mei Xiang gives birth to twins at National Zoo
Officials at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington were ecstatic after a rare giant panda gave birth to twin cubs on Sunday.
Mei Xiang, the giant panda, brought forth twin cubs on Sunday, to the joy of the National Zoo officials. After three decades of frustrating efforts in breeding pandas, they now have a template for caring for the cubs to help them have a greater chance of survival, according to The Guardian.
The newborn panda cubs are still blind, pink, and covered with thin white fur. Both are healthy, with one weighing 4 ounces and the other weighing 3 ounces at birth. The sex of the cubs will not be known until after officials conduct neonatal exams at a later date.
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The birth of the twin panda cubs surprised the zoo officials because they were expecting Mei Xiang to give birth to only one cub. Another thing that the officials are delighted about is the fact that the panda cubs are strong and healthy, as evidenced by their loud squeals every time they were taken away from their mother, Asia Times reports.
Pandas that give birth to twins will not care for both cubs on their own, but will only pay attention to one and leave the other to die. However, Chinese breeders have tried swapping out the cubs every few hours in the past decade to allow the mother to nurse both of them. While one cub is with the mother, the other one is placed in an incubator, the report explains.
After pulling out a successful first swap on Sunday, the staff caring for Mei Xiang will continue this practice as long as Mei Xiang lets them do so and as long as the cubs still need to be nursed by their mother.
"If she gets aggressive toward us, we're not going to get that close," The Guardian quotes giant panda biologist Laurie Thompson.
The first pair twin pandas born in 1987 at the same zoo died after a few days. The second pair, born two years ago, survived with the help of the swapping technique. Since then, Chinese scientists have gained more knowledge about panda breeding. This resulted in the rise of panda cubs' survival rate from less than 20 percent two decades back to 80 percent at present, zoo director Dennis Kelly stated.
Kelly explained that the birth of a panda is very special because this specie is already critically endangered. There are not only 1,800 pandas out in the wild and 350 living in captivity.
Mei Xiang conceived the cubs via artificial insemination in April. They used frozen semen from Hui Hui, a male giant panda in China, and another male from the National Zoo named Tian Tian. Officials will later on conduct a DNA test to determine who is the father of the twin panda cubs.
