Latest Giant Pandas Stories

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. -- If you think kids are picky, try feeding a giant panda. It takes four full-time bamboo hunters at Zoo Atlanta to satisfy the palates of the zoo's panda pair, Lun Lun and Yang Yang. And they are not always successful.The animals' diet consists almost entirely of bamboo, but they will eat only about 20 of the 200 or so species that grow in Georgia. What type they like also varies by the time of year. Sometimes the pandas will eat nothing but one variety for a week, then...

GRAY, Tenn. (AP) - Scientists uncovered a second fossil of a red panda species first discovered at the Gray Fossil Site two years ago. Researchers from East Tennessee State University found a lower jawbone from a red panda of the Pristinailurus bristoli species last week. "The nice thing about it is that it's confirmation," Dr. Steven Wallace, ETSU's lead paleontologist at the site, said Wednesday. "You hate to have a one-shot wonder." The species was discovered in January...

ATLANTA -- After seven years of trying and hoping, Zoo Atlanta officials announced a rare giant panda birth Wednesday, one of only a few in the United States. Lun Lun, a 9-year-old giant panda, gave birth just before 5 p.m. after 35 hours of labor. It's the first panda cub born at the Atlanta zoo and is just the fifth giant panda born at a U.S. zoo in the last six years. The cub is hairless, weighs about 4 ounces and is the size of stick of butter. The sex will not be known for weeks. Panda...

BEIJING (AP) - A giant panda in southwest China has given birth to a pair of twins, state media said, the latest additions in a baby boom for the endangered animals. Ya Ya, who lives in the Chongqing Zoo, delivered the babies about an hour apart early Tuesday, China News Service said. They were her first cubs, it said, and both mother and babies are healthy. The zoo has been closed for a week to give Ya Ya some peace, it said. One has been taken to the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and...

BEIJING -- The lightest panda cub born in captivity is doing well and putting on weight since his premature birth in China on the same day the heaviest incubator-bred panda was born at another research center, state media said on Thursday.The male cub only weighed 51 grams (1.8 ounces) when he was born at the Chengdu Giant Panda Reproduction and Research Center on August 7 along with his twin brother, who was almost three times as heavy, Xinhua news agency said.Most pandas born in captivity...

BEIJING -- A giant panda in China has given birth to the heaviest cub born in captivity after the longest period in labor and elsewhere twin pandas each gave birth to twins, Xinhua news agency reported.Six-year-old Zhang Ka delivered the baby on Monday at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in the mountainous southwest, Xinhua said.The cub weighed just 218 grams (half a pound), but was still the heaviest panda ever born in captivity, where most cubs are born at between 83 and 190 grams,...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A giant panda has broken two records in China by giving birth to the heaviest cub born in captivity after the longest period in labor, an exhausting 34 hours, Xinhua news agency said. Six-year-old Zhang Ka delivered the baby, the second born in captivity in the world this year, on Monday at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in the mountainous southwest, Xinhua said in a report late on Monday. The cub weighed just 218 grams (half a pound), but still became the...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a man trying to sell the fur of a young panda -- seen as a national treasure in the country -- for about $30,000, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday. The man, surnamed Yang, was caught when he was about to finish the 250,000 yuan ($31,310) sale in the southeastern port city of Xiamen, Xinhua said. "The fur is 60 centimetres (24 inches) long and belonged to a panda cub," it quoted experts as saying. Yang and his accomplice, who...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a man trying to sell the fur of a young panda -- seen as a national treasure in the country -- for about $30,000, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday. The man, surnamed Yang, was caught when he was about to finish the 250,000 yuan ($31,310) sale in the southeastern port city of Xiamen, Xinhua said. "The fur is 60 centimeters (24 inches) long and belonged to a panda cub," it quoted experts as saying. Yang and his accomplice,...

BEIJING -- Chinese vets and dentists are considering implanting three false teeth into a giant panda injured in the wilds of the northern province of Shaanxi, Xinhua news agency said.The operation would help the panda -- who also suffered a fractured skull, broken legs and chest injuries after an apparent fall into a ravine -- to take in more nutrition and help it recover, Xinhua said late on Wednesday."With the three teeth, the giant panda will be able to eat bamboo with ease,"...