Pandas mate in lockdown at Hong Kong zoo after ten years trying

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52204078

A baby panda may have been conceived at Ocean Park in Hong Kong while the zoo is in lockdown due to coronavirus.

Two resident pandas, Ying Ying and Le Le, managed to successfully mate on Monday morning - and they've been struggling for a while.

The zoo says the pandas have been making attempts since 2010 with little success, but managed to succeed through "years of trial and learning".

With Ocean Park closed to the public, the pair made the most of the privacy.
Congrats to Ying Ying and Le Le
 

oates

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Who knew? All they required was a bit of privacy to get down to it.
 

SteveJ

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Dante

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Who knew panda just needed the audience removed to be able to conceive
Apparently, they can mate up to 48 times in 3 hours in the wild.

It turns out that threesome or more-somes are pretty standard for giant pandas in the wild, an arrangement that would be hard to replicate in any zoo. In just over three hours, Schaller recorded the large male mating with Zhen-Zhen at least 48 times, roughly once every three minutes. This is way more sex than most humans get in a year.

This intensity and frequency of sexual congress may account for the observation that pandas are so much more productive in the wild than they are in captivity. A long-term study of radio-collared pandas in the Qingling Mountains in Shaanxi Province revealed that females reliably give birth every other year and 60% of cubs survive to see in their first birthday. "On the basis of its reproductive potential, the giant panda therefore remains an evolutionarily successful species," wrote zoologist Pan Wenshi and his colleagues in 2004.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150310-the-truth-about-giant-pandas