A t about 5pm on 25 March, a cold, wet Wednesday earlier this year, Tian Tian, the female giant panda at Edinburgh zoo, stirred from the wooden platform in her outdoor enclosure and began to bleat. These are unusual qualities. Pandas are vegetarian bears with slow metabolisms. They subsist almost entirely on bamboo, which they digest poorly. They do everything they can to avoid unnecessary exertion. If you give Yang Guang a ball, he will most likely see if he can eat it, then let it go. Tian Tian, on the other hand, has been known to skip after balls and do forward rolls. She is not all nice. Tian Tian has bullied keepers off the job, and sometimes takes sly swipes with her enormous claws at passing vets. That afternoon, as they prepared to leave for the day, the panda team at the zoo was watching Tian Tian especially closely.
Everything you always wanted to know about panda sex (but were afraid to ask)
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November 1, pm Updated November 1, pm. Scientists from China and the US have released their findings from a study of the mating rituals of giant pandas today and the results are quite extraordinary and very romantic. The study, conducted over the course of two years, found that giant pandas have the best and possibly only, sex of their lives when their partners sing them a love song beforehand. The study examined 23 adult giant pandas during the and breeding seasons in Sichuan, China. Their findings were published in Royal Society Open Science. All the subjects were sexually active, responsible adult pandas. The scientists clearly had no time for bedroom rookies.
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Then we put them to panda reproduction experts from around the country to set the scientific record straight. Giant pandas are among the oldest of bear species, having lumbered the Earth for around 3 million years. In other words, they know how to do the deed. And yet in the U. In the wild, pandas meet many potential mating partners and often mate with several.
Pandas are cuddly, but not to each other. They muster about as much enthusiasm for sex as a human does for a root canal. Why are they so un-frisky? Chinese scientists have been studying that question for decades, with an eye toward fomenting fornication. Panda biology is part of the problem. Females enter estrus only once a year, for a very short time in the spring. They are receptive and fertile for just 24 to 72 hours. A male panda needs to make his move then, or wait for another whole year. Pandas are also picky: They only want to get down when they have really hit it off with a partner, and that rarely happens. Captivity is a real mood-killer, too.
