24-Hour Panda Pregnancy Watch Begins @ National Zoo
Full panda pregnancy watch started at the National Zooand the panda house is now closed to visitors. Mei is especially sensitive to noise, so we keep the panda house as quiet as possible to reduce possible noise-related stress. Virtual Zoo visitors can see Mei Xiang and Tian Tian on the panda cams. Tian Tian will also be in his yard during the day from early morning until about noon.
Mei has been less interested in food lately. She has almost completely stopped eating bamboo; she mostly just shreds it for her nest now. She chooses to not eat much of the produce we give her—like pears and sweet potatoes. These are signs that we are approaching the end of a pregnancy or pseudopregnancy. Over the holiday weekend, keepers started to see her cradle some of her toys and begin body licking. She will most likely spend more time doing those things as we get closer to the end of a pregnancy or pseudopregnancy.
Although Mei has been sleeping a lot more, she continues to diligently build her nest. It is much larger than it was last week. She dragged two very large bamboo stalks into her den. They are so big that they stick out into her indoor habitat, which makes cleaning in the morning more challenging.
Last Tuesday we live-tweeted Mei’s first ultrasound since her behavior started to change. At 8 a.m., when our veterinarians thought Mei would be more willing to participate, she was half-slumbering on the rocks in her habitat and once again we had no luck. But, Mei surprised us about two hours later when she woke up and was ready to participate in an ultrasound. The veterinarians dashed to the panda house and we live-tweeted the procedure using the hashtag #cubwatch. After about 15 minutes, Mei got up very suddenly and went back to her indoor habitat.
The ultrasound was inconclusive, but it did show that her uterine wall is thickening. We would expect to see that at this stage. The only way we could definitely say that Mei is pregnant before she gives birth is if our veterinarians see a fetus on an ultrasound—which they haven’t. It is not uncommon for panda ultrasounds to be inconclusive and it is very difficult to see a fetus on an ultrasound. We hope that Mei will continue to participate in ultrasounds in the next few weeks, but it is entirely her decision.
On the other side of the panda house, Tian Tian has been continuing his normal summer routine of spending his mornings outside and his afternoons inside. He turned 15 years old on August 27, which he celebrated with a panda-friendly, frozen cake from our department of nutrition.
Source: National Zoo
