photo source: laRazon
Giant panda Mei Xiang at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. has given birth. The cub’s gender is not currently known.
Mei Xiang was only discovered to be pregnant last week. This is her third cub.
Within hours of the birth, the panda cam trained on Mei Xiang’s enclosure crashed due to the heavy volume of traffic.
Giant pandas are native to China, and are severely endangered. There are only about 18,000 pandas left in the wild. Because female pandas can only conceive 2-3 days a year, their reproduction rate is very low, and they are extremely difficult to breed in captivity.
Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated with sperm from a panda at the Smithsonian National Zoo and a panda from Woolong, China. It is not yet know which was the father.