Panda twins born in Atlanta

September 4, 2016 • 8:00 am

This is the best video I’ve seen yet of a panda giving birth. Lun Lun, a female panda at the Atlanta zoo, gave birth to twins. This just happened, and the BBC reports:

Lun Lun, a 19-year-old giant panda, has given birth to twins at Zoo Atlanta.

The zoo will use the same cub-swapping method as for her twins in 2013; they will rotate the cubs so they both receive care from their mother.

Lun Lun was artificially inseminated, and the father is Yang Yang, aged 18.

Look how small, hairless, and helpless that cub is. How do they bring these fetuses up in the wild?

But poor pandas—they never get to have sex!

h/t: Michael

14 thoughts on “Panda twins born in Atlanta

    1. This is not an uncommon event and panda cubs have been inadvertently killed, especially with first-time panda mothers. The curators at the zoos and the Panda bases in China have to be very alert to this possibility.

  1. Classic … it’s not “precocious”, is it “altricial” … infant. Totally dependent on the (mother | parent) for care for an extended period of time.
    Almost like a hoomin. Or a catling.

    1. I admit I tend to confuse pandas with koalas, because both are teddy-like, slow, herbivorous, arboreal, and endangered. Still, I try to remember that they live in different places and the panda is placental while the koala is marsupial. When I looked at the image of the baby panda… I could swear it was a marsupial baby! In the future, I’ll be even more confused.

      1. I thought the same thing, Maya. It certainly looks like a marsupial baby in size, but it doesn’t have to climb all the way up to a pouch.

  2. She must keep it wrapped in her belly to keep it warm, Does she eat while she’s nursing such a vulnerable infant.?

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