Zoo Atlanta have set the date of when their cub born in November 2010 will be named as Tuesday February 15 2011.

I'll provide more details as they become available.

Zoo Atlanta have revealed that the only Giant Panda Cub born in America this year to Lun Lun is a boy.

It's reported that the little bloke has a big belly and is already showing his black and white markings. It took veterinarians around two weeks before they could safely examine the cub, away from Lun Lun who is very protective of him.

He is Lun Lun's 3rd cub mate Yang Yang, the first two being Mei Lan and Xi Lan. The cub is yet to be named as Chinese tradition states that a child is not named until they reach 100 days old.

On October 28, Preferred Medical Systems, LLC loaned the Zoo Atlanta Animal Care and Veterinary Teams a GE ultrasound machine capable of capturing a level of detail never before observed for unborn giant pandas.

Lun Lun the 12 year old female Giant Panda at Zoo Atlanta ovulated over the weekend. Lun Lun and Yang Yang were introduced to each other in the hope of a natural breading. Unfortunately mating didn't occur. So the Keepers, Atlanta's veterinarian team, a Chinese colleague and two American Colleagues from other institutions stepped in to perform artificial insemination.

Now all there is to do is wait and see if Lun Lun gives birth this year.

Atlanta Zoo's nearly 18 month old Giant Panda will be gradually weaned away from his mother in to a solitary life in keeping with how pandas live in the wild.

San Diego developed the step wise programme and it was used to wean Mai Lan (Atlanta's 3 year old that has just gone to China) and also used at other zoos in America. The programme gradually increases the time away from the mother.

Xi Lan should be fully weaned by early march. Xi Lan has already started to eat solid foods including bamboo, leafeater biscuits and fruit.

Whilst we were at Zoo Atlanta, little Xi Lan was very playful and wouldn't leave mum alone.

Check out the video below.

BTW it's not me laughing!

I have had a report that Da Shuan at Chengdu Research Centre had a little girl on 28th September 2009.

I was waiting for the official announcement but nothing so far.

The source of the report is vary reliable, so I've decided to post the good news.

Well done to Da Shuan, and all the staff at Chengdu.

The earthquake of May 12th 2008, is still causing problems for the giant panda programme in china.

The earthquake which caused the death of nearly 80,000 people, left large areas of bamboo forest underneath landslides of mud and rocks, rendered some bamboo groves inaccessible and reduced tourism to the sites which depend on it the most.

A feral cat was found dead in the playground of Cheng Gong, a panda at Chengdu Zoo. It seems that the cat had invaded the pandas territory and the panda had protected it's grounds.

The cat was found by keeper Yang Cheng in the afternoon of May 3rd, it appeared to of been bitten to death by the panda. It appears that Cheng Gong had not eaten any the cat and was just defending it's territory.

"The giant panda has a strong sense of territoriality. Either captive or wild pandas will defend their territory from intruders.” said Yang Cheng the pandas keeper.