Baby Panda Cub Born in Atlanta Is a Girl
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
ATLANTA — The baby panda born earlier this month at Zoo Atlanta is a girl. In a statement posted yesterday on the zoo’s Web site, officials said the female cub appears to be healthy.
Zoo staff members had removed the tiny cub from its birthing den for the first time yesterday, 19 days after panda Lun Lun gave birth, and determined its gender during a 10-minute checkup.
With Lun Lun in an adjacent den, a zoo veterinarian, Maria Crane, gently lifted the baby and began the examination. 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 was male or female.
Ms. Crane also weighed the cub, listened to her heart, and checked her pulse. She weighed nearly 1 1/2 pounds and was a little more than 12 inches long.
The 9-year-old Lun Lun gave birth September 6 after a 35-hour labor. It’s the fifth giant panda born at an American zoo in the last six years.
