Community Corner

Panda-Cam: National Zoo's Giant Panda Has New Itty-Bitty Baby Panda

New cub arrived Friday and appears healthy, but Panda's second cub was stillborn on Saturday.

By Shaun Courtney

The Smithsonian National Zoo's female giant panda Mei Xiang gave birth Friday evening to an apparently healthy cub, but just a day later the mother's second birth was stillborn. 

Mei Xiang went into labor late Friday afternoon, which the Zoo announced in a tweet sent around 4:15 p.m. Friday:

"Watch the panda cams now! Mei's water broke a short time ago and she's having contractions. She may give birth in a few hours #cubwatch."

The first cub appears healthy.

"The panda team heard the cub vocalize and glimpsed the cub for the first time briefly immediately after the birth. Mei Xiang picked the cub up immediately and began cradling and caring for it," according to a post on the zoo's panda page. 


Click here for The Panda Cam: Live video of mama and the cub born Friday.

“I’m glued to the new panda cams and thrilled to hear the squeals, which appear healthy, of our newborn cub,” said Dennis Kelly, director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in a statement.

On Saturday, Mei Xiang gave birth to a second cub, but it was stillborn.

She was artificially inseminated twice on March 30 after unsuccessful natural breeding with Tian Tian, the zoo's male panda. Volunteer behavior watchers have been monitoring Mei Xiang 24 hours a day since Aug. 7. 

Prior to Friday, she had given birth to two cubs, only one of which lived. Her surviving cub, Tai Shan, was born in 2005 and now lives in the Bifengxia Panda Base in China. Last fall she gave birth to a second cub that died a short week later. 



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