Knocked Up?

Mei Xiang, our local panda here in Washington, DC, is experiencing elevated hormone levels that may indicate pregnancy. Here's hoping. Young Tai Shan is scheduled to be handed back to the Red Chinese soon, so we could use a new baby panda. I'm a bit puzzled that the zoo can't determine this with a greater degree of certainty. "There's no reliable pregnancy test for pandas," says the article, which backs up other news accounts I've read. But why can't they use a panda ultrasound and look around?

Photo by me and, no, I'm not sure whether that's Mei Xiang or Tian Tian.

Comments

Speaking of pandas, Matt, you ought to have the Atlantic's tech guy see if he can come up with a way to close comments on your posts after they've been up somewhere around two or three weeks.

You're getting a lot of comment spam, which I only care about because it mucks up the "Recent Comments" list a bit.

Posted by Petey | June 8, 2007 9:37 AM

According to NPR this morning, panda fetuses are so small that they're hard to see on ultrasound until the end of pregnancy.

Panda fetus... just put a few on skewer and grill, with a little lemongrass... yum...

Posted by RC | June 8, 2007 9:52 AM

I imagine an ultrasound would require anaesthetizing the animal, which is probably pretty invasive and stressful.

Posted by Ben Cronin | June 8, 2007 9:52 AM

"Panda fetus... just put a few on skewer and grill, with a little lemongrass... yum..."

Ewwww... That's really disgusting.

Everyone knows lemongrass doesn't go well with panda fetus. Just grill after coating in a little olive oil and serve with a mango chutney.

Posted by Petey | June 8, 2007 10:04 AM

Pandas are born the size of rats. They actually come out as rather hideous squealing things, and one of the problems with maintaining Panda populations is that many mama pandas have trouble bonding with the little rats.

So it is not surprising that in utero they are hard to find by ultrasound.

Posted by Lon | June 8, 2007 10:16 AM

"Photo by me and, no, I'm not sure whether that's Mei Xiang or Tian Tian."

That is so fucking typical. To Matthew, "all pandas look the same".

Goddamn speciesist.

Posted by Petey | June 8, 2007 10:22 AM

Red China: Hands Off Our Pandas!

Posted by JP | June 8, 2007 11:09 AM

Goddamn speciesist.

This strikes me as a specious characterization.

Posted by Steve | June 8, 2007 11:11 AM

The "Red Chinese"? Really?

Posted by Rob Mac | June 8, 2007 11:19 AM

Yeah, as those above have said, Panda fetuses are extremely small, especially when compared to the size of the full grown panda carrying it. Even when born they're smaller than a human infant, so there's no way to do a panda ultrasound, even if you had a very cooperative panda.

From wikipedia:
Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900th of the mother’s weight.

Posted by IMU | June 8, 2007 11:27 AM

The Stick isn't going to China till 2009.

In the meantime, Lou Dobbs must be disgusted at how much love this blatant anchor baby receives.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 8, 2007 11:42 AM

According to wikipedia, "Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900th of the mother’s weight." If the baby is only 3 ounces at birth, imagine how small the fetus is a couple of weeks into a three or four month gestation.

Posted by treetop | June 8, 2007 1:06 PM

Yet more evidence that August was right about pandas.

Posted by David | June 8, 2007 1:37 PM