One 6-year-old Washingtonian is possibly pregnant. Mei Xiang, the female giant panda at the National Zoo, is on a pregnancy watch.
Since she arrived at the zoo from China in 2000, scientists have tried to get Mei Xiang pregnant. Last year, they attempted to mate her with the zoo's male giant panda, Tian Tian. The encounter lasted approximately 15 seconds, but no pregnancy came from it.
This year the pandas failed to mate during Mei Xiang's two-day fertility period. "They just didn't click. He lost interest," said Zoo spokeswoman and AU alumna Sarah Taylor.
In a last-ditch effort to get Mei Xian, pregnant, zoo scientists artificially inseminated the female panda. They are now watching to see whether the panda is "psedo-pregnant" or actually pregnant.
Taylor explained that the words "pseudo-pregnant" are used because it is hard to determine if a panda is pregnant. After a female panda mates, her hormone levels mimic the levels of a pregnancy, though that doesn't necessarily mean that she is pregnant.
The entire panda reproductive cycle must be watched closely. A panda goes into heat and can mate only two days a year. After this, the panda enters a period of 60 to 90 days that is either the pseudo-pregnancy or the real thing.
Once hormone levels drop drastically, the panda is put on a pregnancy watch. During this time, scientists monitor the panda at least eight hours a day. In what is thought to be the final 72 hours of the pregnancy, the panda is watched 24 hours a day. This is expected to happen fairly soon.
Taylor estimated the odds of Mei Xiang being pregnant to be about one million to one. There are several reasons for this.
One of the major reasons is the fact that Tian Tian lost interest and the pandas didn't mate naturally. In natural mating, about a billion sperm would have been released. Artificial insemination only releases about a million.
Also, this is only the first year that Mei Xiang is physically capable of becoming pregnant. The pandas are only here on a 10-year loan from China. They are scheduled to go back in 2010. If Mei Xiang becomes pregnant, the baby panda will go back to China to become part of the breeding population there.
