The Cincinnati Zoo has named its newest red panda cub. Born on July 16, the zoo named its surprise arrival Shenmi, which means secret in Chinese. Zoo officials say her nickname will be Mimi, and they expect Mimi to start exploring the outdoor garden sometime next month. Mimi was a little surprise for her mother Lin, who miscarried first in May using a combination of ultrasound and hormone monitoring to accurately predict the birth dates of two boys born six days apart. ABOVE VIDEO: The Red Panda Ultrasound at Cincinnati Zoo’s regular ultrasound exams at Super Mom Lin’s showed that she was pregnant in April of this year, but unfortunately the pregnancy was lost in May. Because red pandas are seasonal breeders, the team figured Lin wouldn’t give birth this year. But then in July! is the first documented case that a red panda loses its pregnancy and then another embryo comes and implanted in the same year, ”said Dr. Erin Curry, reproductive physiologist with the Cincinnati Zoo CREW. “When ultrasound found she lost the pregnancy in May, there was no historical reason to continue doing ultrasounds this season.” The science was so accurate, in fact, that when the carers noticed Lin was gaining weight, the nurses did it others attributed factors such as their recent consumption of cicadas and mulberries.
CINCINNATI –
The Cincinnati Zoo has named its newest red panda cub.
Born on July 16, the zoo named its surprise arrival Shenmi, which means secret in Chinese.
Zoo officials say her nickname will be Mimi, and they expect Mimi to start exploring the outdoor garden sometime next month.
Mimi surprised her mother Lin, who had a miscarriage in May.
In 2015, zoo researchers were the first to accurately predict the date of birth of two boys born six days apart using a combination of ultrasound and hormone monitoring.
ABOVE VIDEO: The red panda at the Cincinnati Zoo gets an ultrasound
Through regular ultrasound examinations at super mom Lin, they found that she was pregnant in April this year, but unfortunately the pregnancy was lost in May.
Because red pandas are seasonal breeders, the team figured Lin wouldn’t give birth this year.
But then in July she did!
“To the best of my knowledge, Lin is the first documented case where a red panda loses its pregnancy and then another embryo comes and implants that same year,” said Dr. Erin Curry, reproductive physiologist with the Cincinnati Zoo CREW. “When ultrasound found she lost the pregnancy in May, there was no historical reason to continue doing ultrasounds this season.”
So accurate was the science, in fact, that when the zookeepers noticed Lin was gaining weight, they attributed it to other factors, such as her recent consumption of cicadas and mulberries.
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