Huan Huan and Yuan Meng are having taste buds on March 20. – Guillaume SOUVANT / AFP
- On March 20, Huan Huan and Yuan Zi, the panda couple from Beauval Zoo had put in contact in the hope that these matings would lead to new births, so complicated in the plantigrade.
- This Monday, the Beauval Zoo indicates that it has received the results of the hormonal analyzes carried out on Huan Huan after these couplings. They must indicate whether fertilization is likely to be successful. And the answer is yes “.
- However, “it is only a step taken”, insists at the Beauval zoo, recalling that gestation is a path strewn with pitfalls for pandas.
There is Huan Huan, the mother, Yuan Zi, the father, and Yuan Meng, the son, the first panda to be born in France, on August 4, 2017. For the moment, the only pandas present in France are limited to this family living in
Beauval zoo, in Saint-Aignan in Loire-et-Cher. But it could get bigger in the next few months by one or two baby pandas.
On March 20 in any case, Huan Huan, had been “put in contact” eight times with his male companion in the hope that these couplings would lead to a new birth.
“Another step taken” this Monday
The game is not won as reproduction in pandas is such a complicated affair. If not because the female is only fertile 24 to 48 hours per year. On March 20, and while Huan Huan had been showing signs of heat for several weeks (markings on the ground, hormonal changes, vocalizations), everything had gone very well. The two pandas were “cooperative and quite active”. Yuan Zi was “more comfortable with approaches and matings than in previous years”, and the female, who is in heat, was “very interested”, detailed the zoo in a statement. And to put the odds on their side, an artificial insemination was also carried out in the wake.
Mission successful? This Monday, the Beauval Zoo indicates in any case to have received the results of the hormonal analyzes carried out on Huan Huan after these couplings. They must indicate whether fertilization is likely to be successful. And the answer is “yes”, indicates the zoological park in a new press release, while specifying that “nothing is done yet, but that it is a new step taken”.
Wait for the observation of the embryo (s) to be certain
If the conditional remains in force, it is because the gestation of pandas is complicated. If fertilization is successful, embryonic development stops at the egg stage, allowing the expectant mother to store fat. This can last a few weeks or a few months, with female pandas having the ability, extremely rare in the animal kingdom, to stop the development of the fetus. This is the so-called “diapause” period. A priori, development then resumes for a real gestation that lasts between 4 to 6 weeks.
Another peculiarity of this species is that of the risk of false gestation. If fertilization fails, a pseudo-gestation behavior can still manifest itself in Huan Huan in the same way as a true gestation. “We must therefore be patient because the only information which definitively confirms the presence of one or 2 baby pandas, is the observation of the embryo (s) on ultrasound, a few weeks before giving birth,” recalls the Beauval zooparc.
Since 2016, giant pandas are no longer “in danger” of extinction on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). However, the species remains “vulnerable”. About 500 pandas in captivity and 2,000 in the wild live in China.