Da Mao and Er Shun

Rare card · No. 61725

Da Mao (Chinese: 大毛; pinyin: Dàmáo; lit. 'First of Mao'; born September 1, 2008) and Er Shun (Chinese: 二顺; pinyin: Èr shùn; lit. 'Double Smoothness'; born August 10, 2007) are two giant pandas. They were brought to Canada on March 25, 2013, and were supposed to spend five years each at Toronto Zoo and Calgary Zoo. Prior to departure, Er Shun's sex was unknown, as she had not reached full sexual maturity or undergone blood testing, so she was paired with a female panda from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The female was later switched out for male Da Mao once scientists discovered that Er Shun was female. Following Er Shun's first estrus, she was artificially inseminated, and after a suspected pseudopregnancy in 2014, Da Mao and Er Shun had two cubs, Jia Yueyue and Jia Panpan, who were born at the Toronto Zoo on October 13, 2015. In May 2020, the Calgary Zoo requested that both pandas be returned to China due to the difficulty of importing bamboo during the COVID-19 pandemic...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Laura Wolf, CC BY 2.0