Baby panda Su Lin creates stir in California debut

Thousands of holiday visitors lined up this week to see and photograph the San Diego Zoo's 5-month-old panda cub, Su Lin, during her first days on public display...

Su Lin is Bai Yun's third cub, and her public debut comes one month after Tai Shan, a male panda cub born in July, first greeted visitors to the U.S. National Zoo in Washington.

The births of Su Lin and Tai Shan are notable given how hard it is to breed giant pandas in captivity. Females only ovulate once a year, with a slim 24-to-48-hour window for breeding.

Su Lin, one of two panda cubs in the United States, was born on August 2. The panda and her mother, Bai Yun, are on loan to the zoo from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in China.

In the enclosure adjacent to Su Lin, her older brother, 2-year-old Mei Sheng, has been more active than his infant sister. Bai Yun's oldest cub, Hua Mei, returned to China and bore two cubs this year.

Over at Flickr, nikkim79 posted these photos, among others, of Su Lin:

Comments

[pandafix]

Hey Nikki- happy to include your pics and I'm glad you were there at the right time- enjoy...

[Nikki]

Thanks for linking to my Su Lin pictures. I was so lucky to get her. I live in TX and was visiting for Christmas. We went to the Zoo and she just happened to be out! You've got a great collection here. :)

[CrackerLilo]

Hi, gorgeous!

I love Tai Shan's assertiveness and charisma, but Su Lin's just such a precious little panda princess. Very different animals, so wonderfully like human babies!

How cool is it to produce something that is a guaranteed smile for visitors? :-)