Twin giant panda cubs born in Hong Kong in August this year have left incubators and acquired distinctive features thanks to their rapid growth, Hong Kong's Ocean Park said on Monday.
The female weighed 2.7 kg, while at birth she weighed 122 grams. The male cub has grown from 112 grams at birth to 2.54 kg, the theme park said at a press conference.
Videospublished by the park, showed that the female cub has strong limbs and often crawls in her cot and squeaks loudly.
"The twins can be distinguished from each other by the shape of the black spots around their eyes - in the male they are round and in the female they slope upwards at the outer end," She told Elke Wu, assistant curator of zoological operations at the park, adding that the cubs could soon grow out of these traits.
The cubs are weaned from their mother Ying Ying at one week of age and switched to baby food prepared by their caretakers. They have three meals a day at eight-hour intervals.
Ying Ying, who is the oldest mother of a giant panda in history, was suffering from lack of appetite caused by the exhaustion of childbirth. Her caregivers adjusted her diet to help her recover.
"Now Ying Ying has returned 70 to 80 percent of her pre-natal food consumption volume. Caregivers will monitor her condition closely as she is still very sensitive to changes in her environment," Wu said.
To ensure the successful birth and raising of the cubs, the park works with two caretakers from the China Center for Conservation and Research of the Giant Panda, based in southwest China's Sichuan province.
Dong Li, a breeder at the center, said Ying Ying had good maternal instincts because she always got up to take care of the cubs whenever she moved.
Xinhua/ gnews - RoZ
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