Panda in US pregnant with twins
Print Edition
THE mother of the only giant panda twins in the United States may soon deliver a second set of twins, Zoo Atlanta announced, capping off an eventful month for lovers of the fluffy black and white bears across the globe.
Three years ago, mother bear Lun Lun gave birth to female cubs Mei Lun and Mei Huan, who are still at the Georgia zoo but could be returned this fall to China, which owns them, zoo spokeswoman Rachel Davis said.
An ultrasound on Monday confirmed that Lun Lun, who turns 19 years old today, is once again pregnant with twins, the zoo said.
Delivery of the new twins could be in the next few weeks, Davis said, calling the pregnancy a surprise.
Panda pregnancies, famously rare in captivity and outside of China, are notoriously hard to establish or predict. The rarest member of the bear family with roughly 1,864 in the wild, pandas live mainly in bamboo forests high in the mountains of western China.
News of the pregnancy comes as twin panda cubs born at a zoo in Vienna, Austria, turned 16 days old on Tuesday. In China, twin panda cubs, a male and a female, were born at a breeding research base in southwest Sichuan province on August 9.
While the zoo will be closely watching Lun Lun, the rest of the world can also keep an eye on her and perhaps watch her give birth over a live camera streamed at www.zooatlanta.org.
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