National Zoo's Giant Panda Cub Is a Girl - East Idaho News
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National Zoo’s Giant Panda Cub Is a Girl

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panda?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1378395940736BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The giant panda cub born to Mei Xiang at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo on Aug. 23 is female.

The cub’s father is the zoo’s panda Tian Tian, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute revealed.

Tian Tian also fathered a stillborn female cub Mei Xiang delivered on Aug. 24.

Mei Xiang had been artificially inseminated by Tian Tian and another panda, Gao Gao, the Smithsonian reports.  Officials conducted paternity tests to determine the father.

The National Zoo’s panda habitat has been closed to the public since Aug. 2 to provide quiet for Mei Xiang and her baby.

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