It's a girl for US panda

2006-09-26 11:16

Atlanta - The new baby panda at Zoo Atlanta is a girl.

In a statement posted on Monday on the zoo's website, officials said the female cub appears to be healthy. She weighed nearly 0.675kg and was a little more than 30 centimetres long.

Zoo staff members removed the tiny bear from its birthing den on Monday for the first time, 19 days after Zoo Atlanta's panda Lun Lun gave birth to the new cub, and determined its sex during a 10-minute medical check-up.

Because the newborn is so small and Lun Lun often held it close to her body, zoo officials have not known until now whether the newborn cub was male or female.

During the check-up, a veterinarian also weighed the cub, listened to its heart and checked its pulse.

The nine-year-old Lun Lun gave birth on September 6 after a 35-hour labour. It is the fifth giant panda born at a US zoo in the last six years.

The cub is being kept from the public until it turns 100 days old, when, according to tradition, there will be a naming ceremony. Until then, panda fans have been keeping up with the cub on the zoo's online panda cam.

After trying for seven years, the zoo successfully artificially inseminated Lun Lun at the end of March with semen taken from her male partner, Yang Yang. The father and cub are being kept separate, which is normal in the wild.

Only three other US zoos have pandas - San Diego, Memphis and the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Both San Diego and the National Zoo have had successful panda births.

- AP