Nine-year-old giant panda Lun Lun has given birth to a cub in
Zoo Atlanta in the United States.
The youngster was born just before 5 PM local time on September
6 (4:51 AM Beijing time yesterday), according to the Chengdu
Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
The cub is hairless, weighs about 4 ounces and is the size of a
human hand. The sex will not be known for weeks.
The delivery lasted 36 hours, the longest known delivery for
pandas in captivity in the world, said Wang Chengdong, assistant to
the director of the base. It generally takes a panda between two
and 18 hours to give birth.
Lun Lun is responding normally to her new baby, holding the cub
and reacting when it cries, said Dwight Larson, vice-president for
animal programs and science for the zoo.
The first few weeks of a cub's life are critical to its
survival, Larson said. "These are small offspring and quite
fragile," Larson said. "It's going to be tense for us."
Cubs typically take about 75 days to open their eyes. At 100
days, the zoo is planning a naming ceremony for the cub and to
present it to the public.
The cub's mother Lun Lun and father Yang Yang are from the
Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. They arrived at Zoo
Atlanta in 1999 on a 10-year loan from the Chinese government.
In 2004 and 2005, Lun Lun became mature sexually. She then had
artificial fertilization but did not get pregnant.
In early spring this year, the Chengdu research base sent a
panda expert to Atlanta, who worked with the American team to
improve sperm collecting techniques.
"The expert from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda
Breeding used sperm collected from Yang Yang to do artificial
fertilization," Wang said. The two pandas did not have sex.
"Lun Lun became pregnant and gave birth 158 days later," he
said.
The panda birth in Atlanta is the fifth such birth in a US zoo
in the last six years.
(China Daily September 8, 2006)
