There's a new panda in Washington.
Officials at the Smithsonian's National Zoo confirmed the arrival of a cub on Friday for Mei Xiang following a quick labor.
DC's new celebrity
resident was about the size of a butter stick and zoo officials said it
appeared to be doing well, as was mom, who was cradling it in her den.
"This is a very delicate
time for us. We're still on the lookout for a possible second cub," the
zoo's director, Dennis Kelly, said at a news conference.
There was a 50% chance of a twin being born later Friday or early on Saturday.
A healthy little panda
would be extra special because the female cub that Mei Xiang delivered
nearly a year ago died within days. A lack of oxygen due to
underdeveloped lungs was determined as the cause.
Zoo officials said they
were pleased and hopeful things would work out this time, and they even
brought in an expert from China to help out.
"After our last
experience, and this is such a small cub, I am not going to relax,"
Kelly said. "We're gong to be tense for the next two or three months. We
have high hopes."
It will take two to three
weeks to know the sex of the cub and zoo officials won't name it for
100 days, following Chinese tradition.
Conceived through
artificial insemination, it was the third pregnancy for Mei Xiang, 15.
The National Zoo says the cub's father is either their own Tian Tian,
15, or the San Diego Zoo's Gao Gao, who is about 23.
All three pandas are on loan from China.
Mei Xiang and Tian Tian
are already the parents of Tai Shan, who was born in 2005 and now is in
China, the native region for the endangered animals.
American zoo officials
are consulting with their Chinese counterparts about panda reproduction
and ways to encourage newborns to thrive in captivity.
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species, with an estimated 1,900 in existence.
Among pandas born in
captivity, about one in four males and one in four females die in the
year following birth, according to the National Zoo.
America welcomed its first panda twins in 26 years in July at Zoo Atlanta.
The twins were the first
for Lun Lun, who has two other offspring at that zoo, and were the
product of artificial insemination as well. Their father is Yang Yang,
also a resident.
National Zoo experts
began watching Mei Xiang a couple of weeks ago, and the anticipation
peaked once she became restless and began cradling objects.
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