WASHINGTON — The process of getting Bao Bao another brother or sister has begun.
The National Zoo says it determined on Sunday that Mei Xiang, the female giant panda, was able to become pregnant, and did two artificial insemination procedures in short order — the first at 6 p.m. Sunday, the second at 7:30 a.m. Monday.
Mei Xiang was under general anesthesia for the nonsurgical procedures, each of which took about an hour. She was inseminated sequentially by, and with a combination of, semen from Tian Tian, the zoo’s male giant panda, and Hui Hui, a panda from China. The zoo said a Hui Hui-Mei Xiang cub would be very valuable, since Tian Tian’s genes are already represented — he’s the father of Bao Bao as well as her brother, Tai Shan, who is nearly 10 and also lives in China.
Last week, the zoo rather exhaustively documented the journey of Hui Hui’s semen from China on Instagram.
Now, the wait begins. You can’t tell whether a giant panda is pregnant by looking, so zookeepers will monitor Mei Xiang’s hormone levels and do ultrasounds. A panda pregnancy lasts between three and six months, the zoo says.
