Artificial insemination for 22-year-old panda - Times of Malta

Shuan Shuan, the aunt of giant panda Xin Xin, eating bamboo at Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City.

A giant panda will be artificially inseminated next year at the Chapultepec Zoo in the capital of Mexico.

Two Chinese experts on panda reproduction are due to arrive in the coming days. The 22-year-old female panda is expected to be inseminated next April.

Pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Females are in heat for only a few days a year and male pandas often fail to respond to the opporunity.

No baby panda has been produced at Chapultepec Zoo since Xin Xin was born in 1990.

Xin Xin, whose name means hope, is the third generation born from a pair of pandas given to Mexico by China in 1975 as a symbol of friendship between the countries.