Panda Surprises ZooKeepers With Two Baby Cubs, When Scans Only Showed One

In Vienna, Austria at the Schonbrunn Zoo, a giant panda surprised the zookeepers when they found an extra cub that they didn’t see at first when the panda originally gave birth.

The zoo originally announced that the mama panda, Yang Yang, gave birth to one cub on Monday, August 7. The zookeepers then became curious when the heard the squeaks and cries of what sounded like two cubs. It wasn’t until five days later on August 12 that the camera caught Yang yang cradling twin baby pandas.

“It had sounded as if there were two young animals squeaking, but the pictures only ever showed one,” Zoo director Dagmar Schratter stated. But then on Friday the 12th, “Keepers could see two babies on the screen for the first time.”

The zoo believes in allowing the animals to naturally rear their offspring so the keepers had only viewed the panda giving birth through the cameras set up in the enclosure. As you can imagine, they were thoroughly surprised when the cameras showed Yang Yang cradling two tiny babies.

Zoologist Eveline Dungl stated in the zoo’s news release regarding the good news, “Both pups have little fat bellies and mother panda Yang Yang is very relaxed.” She also mentioned, “the little ones can be rarely seen on the pictures because Yang Yang warms them between her large paws most of the time.”

The babies were born pink and without fur, but the zookeepers have said they have already noticed some black and white hair growing on their backs. Also, in keeping with Chinese tradition, the baby pandas will not be named until they are past 100 days old. The reason for this is because pandas usually only rear the strong of the two children when having twins, and also because the survival rate for pandas is only 50% in their first weeks of life.

According to the zoo, if all goes well, visitor sat the zoo will be able to see the twins when they become four months of age. Until then we will just have to enjoy the photos and videos that the website posts on social media.

[H/T ABC, Zoo Vienna]